1926-05-20

FUEL SUPPLY COMMITTEE

[Stage Direction]
First report of special committee on Fuel.- Mr. Lapierre.

[Stage Direction]
(Questions answered orally are indicated by an asterisk.)
PENSION TO COLONEL F. J. MURRAY Mr. BROWN:
What is the amount of pension being paid to Colonel F. J. Murray?
['I wish to ask the Minister of Railways if he will use his influence with the Canadian Pacific and the New York Central companies who have a junction point in my constituency, to ensure more regular connection than at present exists so that the local people may enjoy a better service.\nHon. CPIARLES A. DUNNING (Minister of Railways and Canals): I thank my hon. friend for the high opinion he evidently entertains of my influence. I shall be very glad to look into the matter and see if there is any way in which I can render help.']
Hon. J. C. ELLIOPT (Minister of Soldiers' Civil Re-establishment):: Seventy-seven dollars and fifty cents per month.



[Stage Direction]
IMPORTATION OF FARM PRODUCTS Mr. DOUCET:
What were the importations into Canada from United States and from other countries, respectively, during the year 1925, of the following farm products: (a) fresh fruits, (b) dried fruits, (c) grain, (d) meats, including beef and pork products, (e) dairy products, (f) potatoes, turnips and sugar beets, (g) eggs, (h) wool?
Hon. J. A. ROBB (Minister of Finance):: Passed as an order for return, which I now table.


UNIVERSAL PROMOTION OF RAILWAY EMPLOYEES
[Stage Direction]
On the Orders oif the Day:
Mr. JEAN-FRANCOIS POULIOT (Temis-couata):	I would like to address a question
to the hon. Minister of Railways and Canals (Mr. Dunning) in regard to the so-called system of universal promotion for railway employees. I am told that there is an arrangement between the heads of the employees' brotherhoods to the effect that the system of universal promotion will be established in the near future. According to that system an employee who has seniority right in a railway region .will have that

seniority right all over that region. Accordingly a man from Riviere du Loup, in my constituency, will perhaps have to work on the Transcontenental railway if the other employees there are his juniors, and a man who works in New Brunswick may be sent to Prince Edivard Island or Nova Scotia or vice versa, for an indenfinite period of time. This would be very embarrassing to him, making it necessary to leave his family, and as everyone knows railway employees are not supposed to be Wandering Jews.
In that respect I would ask the Minister of Railways if it would not be proper, and if it is not the intention of the management of the Canadian National Railways, to ask the employees of every district to vote on that matter and decide among themselves what should be done in their own district.
Hon. CHARLES A. DUNNING. (Minister of Railways and Canals):	I am informed,
Mr. Speaker, that these matters of seniority give considerable difficulty to the management of every railway in this country or in the United States. Up to the present it has been the policy of the management to endeavour, so far as possible, to have the men themselves, through their organizations, determine the broad general policy to be followed, provided that such a policy does not interfere with the proper management and conduct of the road, and does not add unduly to the cost of operation. With regard to the specific details to which my hon friend refers, there will, I am sure, be an excellent opportunity before the special committee which was appointed yesterday to go very thoroughly into details with the operating officers of the road, and I know that members whose constituents are affected will take advantage of that opportunity and get all detailed information regarding it.
Mr. POULIOT:: Am I to understand that
the new proposal will not be enforced until the committee has reached a decision?


Mr. DUNNING:: I do not wish to convey that impression, Mr. Speaker. This is a matter for the management of the railway itself. The employees are under the control of the management, and I should not* like to say that we could properly take the position that a committee of parliament should deal with such details as the conditions of employment of the railway men and their movement from place to place; but the committee

Importation oj Miners
is entitled to the fullest information from the management as to their reasons for adopting any particular policy in this or any other regard.


IMPORTATION OF MINERS
[Stage Direction]
On the Orders of the Day:
Mr. A. A. HEAPS (North Winnipeg):: Mr. Speaker, this morning I received from Winnipeg the following telegram which I wish to draw to the attention of the government: Yesterday the following notice appeared in the government employment office, one hundred miners (shooters and loaders) for shooting and loading coal. Must have experience and be able to qualify as miners. Single men preferred. Rates forty eight to fifty-five cents per ton according to height of seam. Applicants are expected to join union and be prepared to pay own transportation. Board eight dollars to nine dollars per week. Position permanent. Superintendents having applicants please communicate with superintendent of employment service of Canada, Sydney, Nova Scotia. We took this up with Bowman,-
Mr. Bowman, I might say, is the superintendent of employment service in the city of Winnipeg.
-who advised us to see Rigg.-
Mr. Rigg, Sir, is superintendent of the employment service for the Dominion of Canada, with offices in this city.
-We wired Rigg as follows: Employment office advertising for one hundred miners for Nova Scotia. Are you aware that the minors in Pictou county only working two days per week and hundreds idle? Cape Breton, Sydney Mines and Florence two days out of last two weeks. We protest government employment offices advertising for men under these conditions. Wire reply what you can do." We received the following wire in reply this morning: "Replying to your wire even date re miners for Nova Scotia. Coal production in Nova Scotia mines rapidly increasing and request for importation of European miners has been filed with the Department of Immigration. Our efforts directed towards meeting requirements from labour resident in Canada. We are advised that demand cannot be met in Maritime provinces. Signed R. A. Rigg." This is the lamest excuse ever heard. The fallowing are the wires received from New Glasgow, Sydney and Glace Bay. Sydney, Nova Scotia. All m;nes in Sydney Mines area have worked about one week since first of January. Glace Bay area almost as bad. When mines are operating they are overcrowded and contract men don't make three dollars a day.-


Mr. SUTHERLAND (South Oxford):: Mr. Speaker, I rise to a point of order. Are certain members of this House to have privileges which are denied to others in being allowed to read articles at considerable length on the orders of the day? [DOT]


Mr. SPEAKER:: I was just about to cad
the attention of the hon. member for North Winnipeg (Mr. Heaps) to the fact that it is
not regular for a member to read a paper which he may have in his possession when putting a question before the orders of the day are called. A question of that nature should be placed on the order paper. Questions on the orders of the day ought to be short and to the point. I would advise the hon. gentleman to put his question on the order paper.
I may say to the hon. member for South Oxford (Mr. Sutherland) that no member has special privileges; all members have equal rights.


Abraham Albert Heaps: I will now put my question,
Mr. Speaker, and then follow your suggestion. Is the government aware that the Besco corporation have asked for one hundred miners to be sent to Nova Scotia, when there are hundreds and hundreds of miners down there who at present are. out of work or working part time only?


John Campbell Elliott: Mr. Speaker, so far as I am aware, the government has no information on the subject. I shall be very glad to look into the matter if I can have an opportunity of reading the messages which my hon. friend (Mr. Heaps) has been referring to.


Mr. MACDOUGALL:: Mr. Speaker may
I ask the Minister of Labour (Mr. Elliott) what attitude he will adopt in reference to this matter in view of the correct information which has been presented to the House by the hon. member for North Winnipeg (Mr. Heaps) ?


John Campbell Elliott: I will let my hon. friend
know when I decide.


Abraham Albert Heaps: Mr. Speaker, I could not
quite catch the remarks of the hon. Minister of Labour. Do I understand him to say that he will undertake to investigate the matter and see what can be done?


John Campbell Elliott: Yes.


Mr. WOODSWORTH:: Mr. Speaker, might I ask in that connection whether the Acting Minister of Immigration (Mr. Stewart) would permit the importation of one hundred Europeans to go to work in the Glace Bay district?


Hon. CHARLES STEWART (Acting Minister of Immigration):: Mr. Speaker, if I
caught the purport of the telegram correctly, it was that the Department of Immigration was being asked to permit the entry of
C.N.R.-Passenger Rates

miners from Europe. I have no knowledge of such a request. Before granting it I would have to make due investigation to . decide whether or not any labour of that character was required.


James Shaver Woodsworth: Mr. Speaker, the
information in the telegram comes from the superintendent of employment in Ottawa. The statement is distinct that an effort is to be made to induce European workers to come into the Nova Scotia coal mining area.


Charles A. Stewart: All I can
say is that, as Acting Minister of Immigration, I have heard nothing about the matter. When it was up before I was consulted, and I will be. consulted again before anything is done.


OTTAWA COLLEGIATE INSTITUTE
[Stage Direction]
On the Orders of the Day:
Mr. THOMAS CANTLEY (Pictou):: May I ask my hon. friend the Minister of Mines (Mr. Stewart) if he is aware that the collegiate institute board of Ottawa is calling for tenders for 950 tons of coal? The class of coal specified is "American smokeless or steam coal, run of mine." Now, surely, Mr. Speaker, after all the efforts-


Hewitt Bostock: Order. I assume the hon. gentleman is going to put his question.


Thomas Cantley: Will the minister be good enough to inquire into the situation and use his best efforts to induce the collegiate board to exercise some common sense in this matter?


Charles A. Stewart: Yes, Mr. Speaker, I will inquire;
but I must point out to my hon. friend that the matter is not within our control.


Mr. STEVENS:: The government is the
biggest taxpayer, though.


Right Hon. W. L. MACKENZIE KING (Prime Minister):: Is it not a fact that the
collegiate institute is under the control of the government of Ontario? That being so, my hon. friend should communicate with the provincial authorities.


Sir HENRY DRAYTON:: It is a municipal institution.


CANADIAN NATIONAL RAILWAYS
[Stage Direction]
On the Orders of the Day:
Mr. 0. B. PRICE (Westmorland):	Mr. Speaker, I should like to ask the hon. Minister of Railways and Canals (Mr. Dunning) a question in reference to the operation of the passenger traffic department of the Canadian National Railways. I am directing his attention to the matter because of the fact that it concerns Maritime people in the west, and I believe it is of sufficient importance to bring before the House. I will just briefly state what the complaint is. At the present time there is a regular passenger rate-
Hewitt Bostock: Order. Will the hon.
member kindly put his question?


Mr. PRICE:: I think I am in order. I wish to ask the Minister of Railways if he would please use his efforts to see that people residing in Winnipeg at the present time, who desire to get excursion rates to the Maritime provinces will be treated the same as those wishing to go from Winnipeg to the west. The excursion rate offered in that case is less than the regular rate to Vancouver, Seattle and Victoria. I wish to ask if the minister would use his efforts, and I believe he will, to see that the people in the Maritime provinces are given reasonable excursion rates as well as the people in other parts of Canada. I should like the minister to know that the excursion rate from Winnipeg to Halifax and return is only ninety-five cents less than the regular rate, while from Winnipeg to Vancouver and return the regular rate is reduced $20.38. Will the minister endeavour to have this discrimination remedied?


Hewitt Bostock: The hon. member is exceeding his rights in making comment.
Hon. CHARLES A. DUNNING (Minister of Railways and Canals): I understand the hon. member has asked me to use my influence to bring about an adjustment in the matter of rates. I shall be very careful on every occasion before promising to exert any influence in any such case as that. I believe the laws of this Dominion prescribe certain methods whereby railway rate adjustment may be discussed and adjudicated. I shall be very pleased to make inquiries as to the condition to which my. hon. friend has referred, but I am not going to make any promise to get anything done with respect to railway rates.

Fruit Combine
[DOT] 3573


MARITIME RIGHTS COMMISSION
[Stage Direction]
On the Orders of the Day:
Isaac Duncan MacDougall: I desire to ask the right hon. leader of the government if he can give the House any information as to when the commission appointed to investigate Maritime rights will hold its first sitting and where that sitting will be held?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: The last word I had was that the chairman of the commission, Sir Andrew Rae Duncan, expects to be able to enter upon his duties in connection with the commission in the month of June. Just as soon as the chairman finds it possible to come out from England I understand the work of the commission will be proceeded with.


MR. JOHN HANNA
[Stage Direction]
On the Orders of the Day:
Mr. M. E. MAYBEE (Northumberland, Ont.):: I had a question placed on the order paper on March 23nd with reference to the dismissal of John Hanna and the Minister of Railways and Canals promised on Mlay 6 to look into the matter. I should be glad to know from him whether he has carried out his promise?
Hon. CHARLES A. DUNNING (Minister of Railways and Canals): If the hon. gentleman will give me the number of the order I shall be very glad to have the matter looked into to-day.


FRUIT JOBBER BROKER COMBINE
[Stage Direction]
On the Orders of the Day:
Mr. GROTE STIRLING (Yale):: In view of the fact that cherries were being picked in the Okanagan valley ten days ago, I wish to ask the Minister of Labour whether he is yet in a position to make the statement with respect to jobber owned brokerage houses to which he referred on April 22nd.


John Campbell Elliott: At the time to which my hon. friend refers an appeal was pending. Four of the brokerage houses were fined $25,000 each, and four individuals were fined a similar amount. An appeal was taken against those decisions on the ground that the judgment was not a proper one. On behalf of the crown a cross appeal was entered. Within the last few days I have received word from the gentleman in charge of that matter that the appeal 14011-227
has been withdrawn, and the government has decided that the cross appeal should also be withdrawn. I may tell my hon. friend that there are four other indictments preferred against those houses, but the present impression is that they will not be proceeded with at this time. A court is to be held in about three weeks and the cases are going to be traversed until the following court. Possibly later on, if it is considered that the jobber owned houses are carrying on business in a way that is detrimental to the berry growers, these prosecutions may be disposed of. So far as they are concerned no decision has yet been arrived at. If any further information is desired in connection with the matter I will be very glad to go into it very fully with my hon. friend or any other member of the House who may be interested.


RAILWAY CONNECTION IN STORMONT COUNTY
[Stage Direction]
On the Orders of the Day.
Mr. C. J. HAMILTON (Stormont):: I wish to ask the Minister of Railways if he will use his influence with the Canadian Pacific and the New York Central companies who have a junction point in my constituency, to ensure more regular connection than at present exists so that the local people may enjoy a better service.
Hon. CPIARLES A. DUNNING (Minister of Railways and Canals): I thank my hon. friend for the high opinion he evidently entertains of my influence. I shall be very glad to look into the matter and see if there is any way in which I can render help.



QUESTIONS ON ORDERS OF THE DAY


Hewitt Bostock: With respect to questions put on the orders of the day I find the following in Bourinot's Parliamentary Procedure at page 355:
Remarks with respect to a return not brought down in answer to an order or address, or on a matter of urgency, or of public business, or of personal explanation, may be allowed by the indulgence of the House, but not as a matter of absolute right. All questions and answers thereto-when answers are necessary-should be brief, and involve no matter of controversy or debate. A minister will sometimes request the member to put his question on the notice paper when he is not prepared to give a prompt and brief answer. If a member wishes to bring up a question of urgent public importance he should proceed under the provisions of rule 89.



Ways and Means-Customs Tariff



WAYS AND MEANS


[Stage Direction]
The House in committee of Ways and Means, Mr. Duff in the chair.
Customs tariff-7. Meats, fresh n.o.,p. per pound: British preferential tariff, 2 cents; Intermediate tariff 2£ cents; general tariff, 3£ cents.
James Alexander Robb: Yesterday my hon. friend the ex-Minister of Finance (Sir Henry Drayton) directed my attention to the question of the difference in the rate. I think he was following a copy of the consolidation of the customs tariff used in the department and sent out to the offices, but the half cent referred to in no way affects this.


Henry Lumley Drayton: That is what I wanted to know. The Australian rate remains at half a cent?


James Alexander Robb: Yes.


Henry Lumley Drayton: And it is not in the special tariff, but it remains at half a cent?


James Alexander Robb: Yes.


Donald Sutherland: Would the minister inform us on what basis this increase is made in connection with this matter. It is true that it may apply to the Australian treaty, but how does it come that the increase of half a cent a pound is made, and that the tariff is not put on an equality with the tariff of other countries in regard to this product?


James Alexander Robb: The agreement with Australia was that we should give them a spread of three cents, and in transmitting the messages by cable a mistake was made, and this item is to corect that mistake, so that they will have a spread of three cents, instead of two and a half cents. It is an increase in the general tariff, raising the general tariff against the world, and automatically that gives Australia a spread of three cents. It does not change the Australian rate coming in, but gives them a half a cent more spread against the rest of the world.


Henry Lumley Drayton: The minister points out just exactly what happened with the Australian treaty. The real arrangement between Australia and Canada was that there should be a spread of three cents, and it was entirely in the hands of the government whether they would raise that rate in such a way as to protect the Canadian farmer,

or whether they would not. Perhaps my hon. friend would answer the question of the hon. member for South Oxford better if he would explain why he did not make the Australian rate two cents, the same as the British preference tariff, and the general rate five cents.


James Alexander Robb: That is a question of policy.


Donald Sutherland: The policy in the future is, I presume, to be dictated by the tariff board?


James Alexander Robb: I think the Prime Minister
has already made that very clear to the House and the country. The tariff board is an inquiry board to examine into conditions, but the government of the day must accept the responsibility, and the 245 members elected to this House from the different constituencies in Canada will have the last-word to say as to what shall be the tariff policy of Canada,


Donald Sutherland: We are now dealing with an item in the tariff-Under the arrangements made by the government with Australia-and a few weeks before the election the same privileges were extended to New Zealand-Australia maintains a tariff of five cents a pound against similar exports from this country going to Australia. That is the reason. I asked the minister if he would inform the House upon what principle or basis this reduction was founded? There surely must be some principle, because a change of three cents per pound against imports of fresh meats from Australia is going to result in tremendous imports into this country of such products as mutton and lamb from that country, and it is going to Ibe a great hardship on those engaged in producing similar meats in this country. So far neither the minister nor the government has informed the country why the reduction of two cents was made in regard to those commodities in those twi treaties. It is quite apparent that, as a result of the treaty, our favourable balance of trade with those two countries has already decreased very much indeed, away up in the millions, and this is another evidence of an attempt to sacrifice the interests of agriculture to obtain some other concessions from other countries, and while on the surface it may appear as some degree of relief, as a matter of fact it is not, because of the danger to which I have referred of large imports from those countries. Now our good neighbours to the south of us are continually exporting into this country, or our people are importing from that country, large quantities, particularly of pork products, under this item, and instead of having an increase of half a.

Ways and Means-Customs Tariff
cent a pound, I think the government w.ould be well advised to make that five cents a pound, and then have your tariff board inquire into the matter. It is surely a matter which should be remedied. It is absolutely unfair to those engaged in agriculture in this province that they should have to submit to conditions of that kind, because it affords a convenient channel for dumping to take place in Canada from the United States. It has happened in the past and is the practice to-day.


James Alexander Robb: Perhaps I had better place on
record the real trade before any other hon. member speaks. My hon. friends opposite apparently change their policy every day. Heretofore they have been finding fault because of the importations from the United States and have said that we should increase duties against United States products and improve trade within the empire. That is exactly what we are doing under this legislation. We are increasing the rate against the United States and we are lowering the rate to the other British dominions where we have the preference. We.have no preference in the United States. Let us look into it and find out how the trade has been flowing in recent years, and how farm products have been coming into Canada. The statistics I have here are not quite up-to-date, because they are for the year ending March, 1925, but I imagine they are fairly correct for the other years. The total importations of fresh beef for the fiscal year 1925 were $39,638; of that $69 worth came from other countries and the balance from the United States; or, in other words, the United States had all the business. Against that business we are adding an additional half cent tax. Now we come to mutton. My hon. friend has referred to the importations of mutton from Australia. During that year we imported a total of $221,596 of mutton, and $193,426 of that came from the United States. Prom Australia we imported $13,527 worth and from New Zealand $5 801, and let me say that New Zealand is four days nearer to Canada than Australia. We imported from all other countries $8,842 worth. Now we come to pork, and incidentally let me say we import pork during slack seasons for use in our packing factories, and very often when this is exported as bacon 99 per cent of the duty is rebated, but it gives employment to Canadian workmen in the slack season.


Donald Sutherland: Could you tell us how much we imported last year?
14011-227J


James Alexander Robb: We imported of fresh pork
for the year I am quoting now a total of $1,095,778 worth. Where do we import that from? None from Australia, none from New Zealand none from any country but the United States. It all comes from the United States and against that we are raising the tariff one-half cent a pound. My hon. friend who has been preaching politics throughout this session rises to-day to protest against this change.


Donald Sutherland: I
do not like a statement of that kind to be made when it is not based on fact.
Mr. R'OBB:	Of all other meats we imported a total of $26,585 worth of which only $19 worth was from countries other than United States.


Donald Sutherland: The minister will understand that I advocate increasing the tariff so as to make it equal to that of the United States against us instead of reducing or raising it by this amount, one-half cent.


James Alexander Robb: I cannot agree with that.


Donald Sutherland: The minister says that he cannot agree with that. That is the reason why I was asking upon what principle they based the increase of one-half cent a pound. It is to enable the Australians and New Zealanders to have an advantage of three cents a pound in our market. While the minister has given the figures for last year he does not need to go very far back to find that some years seven or eight million pounds of Australian and New Zealand mutton were imported into Canada. It is true that not very much was imported last year until the Australian treaty went into effect.


Mir.   DAWS@: What were the importations
of mutton from Australia prior to March 31, 1926, and what have they been since the Australian treaty went into effect?


James Alexander Robb: During March, 1925, we imported from Australia 17,074 pounds of mutton. In March, 1926, after this treaty was in force, wc imported 4,640 pounds.


Mr. DAVIS:: Let me suggest that a much fairer comparison would be to give the imports for the year ended March 31, 1926, and for the first three months under the Australian treaty.


Mr. GUTHRIE:: If the minister will look at the return which he tabled to-day he will get some more light on the subject. It is only half an hour since the minister tabled a return on this point showing importations


James Alexander Robb: The only item under consideration was fresh meats and that is what I was referring to.


Hugh Guthrie: I was quoting from the
return in regard to meat and meat products.


James Alexander Robb: Meat products is not involved in this.


Hugh Guthrie: I understand that and
the House understands it. Going into details we find that of beef, fresh, chilled or frozen, there were imported from the United States 133,248 pounds of a value of $35,910 and from all other countries, $240 worth. Of imutton and lamb, fresh, chilled or frozen, we imported from the United States 1,072,134 pounds of a value of $229,361 and from all other countries-and this is where the great increase occurs-we imported 310,523 pounds.


James Alexander Robb: Included in that is some from Argentina.


Hugh Guthrie: The statement does not
say whence it comes, but there is a marked increase in that item. Of pork, fresh, chilled or frozen, we imported from the United States 5,701,418 pounds of a value of $1,042,403. Practically all the importations of pork came from the United States. Hitherto, there has been against these importations a duty of three cents a pound. I suppose, following out its low tariff policy, this government would have maintained this duty of three cents a pound, but it was induced to change that by reason of a dicker with Australia and New Zealand, and the foundation of this part of the Australian treaty seems to be that we give Australia a clear preference of three cents a pound on beef, fresh, chilled or frozen, and on mutton and pork, in order to aceom-modiate Australia which gives us nothing We now propose to increase the duty against the products of the United States by one-half cent a pound. The idea is not to give the farmers of this country any additional protection ^gainst -the United States, although they will incidentally get an additional protection of one-half cent a pound, but to accommodate Australia. It is really to open the markets of the farmers of Canada to the people of Australia and not to afford any additional protection against goods coming from the United States.
	[
What the hon. member for South Oxford asks is that our tariff on importations of these products from the United States be materially increased. The demand from this side of the House and from the farmers in Canada in general is that they be protected against importations of these goods from the United States. If the minister had listened to the arguments addressed to this House from time to time by the hon. member from South Oxford, he could realize only one thing, namely, that the hon. member for South Oxford, who is a farmer himself, made his demand plain and insistent and we on this side do the same. This additional duty of one-half cent a pound is of no value whatever; it wi'l not check importations of United States beef, or mutton, or pork. If the minister will make a substantial increase in the duty -against the United States he will satisfy part of the demand of the farmers of the country in this respect.


James Alexander Robb: I wish to put on Hansard
now following a statement of the hon. member for South Wellington (Mr. Guthrie)-


Hugh Guthrie: Put in the whole statement.


James Alexander Robb: I will put on Hansard the
statement as it is in the printed copy of the Trade of Canada for the twelve months ended March 31 of the three years, 1924, 1925 and 1926, so that hon. gentlemen can make a comparison as to the movement of trade: Country, United States
Importations 1924	1925	1920
pounds pounds pounds
Beef, fresh, chilled or
frozen	 160,858	128,043	133,248
The importation from all other countries is only a bagatelle; it is not worth quoting. Mutton, total importations 1,561,528 1,301,637 1,3?2,657
Now I will give the countries of origin: Mutton
1924	1925	1926Country	(pounds	(pounds	poundsUnited States	
1,376,403	1,039,039	1,072 134Australia	
139,967	117,669	215,250
In other words, the reduction in imports from the United States has not been quite made up in imports from Australia. There is a difference of about 96,000.
Pork
1924	1925	1926
Country	pounds (pounds pounds
New Zealand	 20,100	40,174	24.300
United States	 2,039,955 7,860,831 5,701.418


Alfred (Fred) Davis: I want to call the attention of the House, and especially of the minister,


Ways and Means-Customs Tariff
to an important fact. For a few years past the raising of sheep has been one industry in which the people of the western provinces have taken a great pride. There was a time years ago when Australian mutton was imported in such large quantities on the Pacific coast as almost completely to destroy the industry in the western provinces, and in order to revive and stimulate the raising of sheep the duty was increased so as to shut out that imported mutton. Under the tariff as proposed to-day, however, there is such a reduction as to encourage the revival of the Australian trade with the result that Australian mutton will flood the Canadian market. The minister has given us the imports during the past three years. While, in 192^, 139,000 pounds came into Canada and in 1925 and 1926, 117,000 and 215,000 pounds respectively, I would point out that according to a return which was brought down in the House and which I have in my hand there has been imported during the first six months in which the Australian treaty has been in force no less a quantity than 185,643 pounds of Australian mutton which has been sold on the Canadian market. I earnestly urge that something be done to maintain this great industry in western Canada. The west is better adapted to the raising of sheep than it is to any other branch of the live stock industry. What I predicted before has come to pass in western Canada, where we find to-day sheep being sold at from three to four dollars per head less than before this treaty came into effect. I am firmly of the opinion that if something is not done to offset the influence of that agreement this industry will be, if not ruined, at least seriously injured. In the interests of sheep raisers, not only in western Canada but throughout the Dominion, I therefore appeal to the minister to increase the tariff and so protect and build up the industry we now have.


Mr. TOLMIE:: I endorse what the hon.
member says concerning the precarious condition of the sheep industry in Canada to-day.
Our showing in this industry has 4 p.m. never at any time been flattering to Canadian farmers and to the Canadian people generally. We have in Canada two and three-quarter million sheep as compared with forty million in the United States and eighty million in Australia. Immediately after the war Australian mutton and lamb were shipped into the United States through the port of San Francisco, and Argentine mutton and lamb through the Atlantic ports, to such an extent as to create
alarm in the American industry. It was feared that these importations would destroy the industry there and without any waste of time the United States authorities increased their tariff with the result that the importations have been very considerably reduced, the home market being preserved to the American producers. The situation is quite serious from our point of view. The Australian and New Zealand sheep growers can produce both mutton and lamb cheaper than we can, indeed, cheaper than any other country is able to produce these commodities, and this is due largely to their favourable climatic conditions and to the fact that they can raise their stock on grass the year round. And when you consider this grave fact, that in years of drought in Australia and New Zealand mutton and lamb fall in price owing to the tendency to rush them on the foreign market before they become affected, there is a very great danger of these products being dumped in very large quantities on the Canadian market. Taking all these facts into consideration, therefore, I certainly think we ought to protect our sheep industry by means of larger tariffs both on mutton and lamb and on wool. We ought to frame our tariff to suit our own needs and should manage the affairs of this country to the best of our ability for the benefit of the Canadian people instead of being quite so generous with other countries.


Mr. ARMSTRONG (Lambton):: I wish to support most heartily the remarks of the hon. member for East Calgary as well as those of the ex-Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Tolmie). There is a large district given over to sheep raising in my part of the country, and the people engaged in the industry there are very much worried about the present tariff proposed by the minister. There is however another matter I want to emphasize particularly and in connection with which I would ask the minister a question. Does the minister know whether the attention of his colleague the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Motherwell) has been drawn to the fact that the hog cholera prevailing, in western Ontario in particular, is attributed to the importata-tion of American pork and that if that pork were kept out of the Canadian market there would be no fear of this disease in the various districts in which hogs are raised?


James Alexander Robb: That feature of the hog industry has not been called to my attention, but I suggest to the hon. member that when the estimates of the Minister of Agriculture are under consideration he might more properly discuss the subject. I am not disposed
3578	COMMONS
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to be drawn into an argument on that question to-day. However, I shall direct the attention of the Minister of Agriculture to the hon. gentleman's representations and ask him to be prepared to make a statement on the point. Regarding the remarks of my hon. friend (Mr. Davis), I think the hon. gentleman is somewhat astray. He said that the duty had been increased on mutton in order to encourage the Sheep industry in Canada. I find that the duty on mutton has not been changed since 1906, notwithstanding that during a period of the time intervening my genial and good friend from Victoria, B.C. (Mr. Tolmie) was Minister of Agriculture and had ample opportunity as a member of the government to press his views on the tariff in relation to this matter. There has been no alteration in the tariff since 1906 until now, when we propose this slight change.


Alfred (Fred) Davis: What was the duty prior to
the change now proposed?


James Alexander Robb: My hon. friend from South
Oxford (Mr. Sutherland) intimated that we had made a change of two cents. As a matter of fact, the change is only half a cent on the general. The previous rates were: British preference, two' cents; intermediate, two and a half cents; general three cents. All we propose to do now is to increase the general by half a cent.


Mr. CAHAN:: But let us be fair and frank in a discussion of this kind.


James Alexander Robb: Are we not?


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: That is what I would like to ascertain. You are now charging one-half cent on importations from Australia.


James Alexander Robb: But that has not been changed; that Australian agreement has been approved of by this House.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: I will grant that, and therefore let us be candid about it.


James Alexander Robb: The only thing before the
House is the increase in the general tariff.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: No, that is not all, if I may say so. It is true that when the Australian treaty was brought down the duty was decreased to one-half cent per pound on importations from Australia. But the essence of the Australian treaty was not that that duty should be retained at one-half cent on importations from Australia, but that this House in its discretion might impose any duty per pound on those importations, provided that it gave Australia a preference of three cents per pound over importations under the general tariff. Is that not right?


James Alexander Robb: That is right; that is what I stated.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: Therefore, the essence of
my criticism is that you have provided for a preference in favour of Australia of three cents per pound, but, so far as the Canadian producer is concerned, with respect to Australia you have reduced the tariff from three cents per pound to one-half cent per pound.


James Alexander Robb: But that has been settled and approved by parliament already.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: That has not been settled and approved by parliament if you please. It has been settled and approved by parliament that Australia shall have a preference of three cents per pound, but it has not been settled by parliament that the Australian duty shall remain at one-half cent per pound.


James Alexander Robb: Oh yes, it has; with all due respect to my hon. friend as a lawyer, that was settled in the agreement of June, 1925.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: It was settled in that agreement, with the further proviso that the parliament of Canada might impose any duty per pound it pleased upon importations from Australia, provided that Australia had a preference under the general tariff.


James Alexander Robb: My hon. friend is wrong again.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: I read it so, and until my hon. friend convinces me to the contrary I am afraid I shall remain of that opinion. My suggestion is that the sheep industry of this country is one of our most important industries.


James Alexander Robb: We are agreed on that.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: I remember in my native
province of Nova Scotia when the sheep industry was the main reliance of a great many farmers. That industry, not only in Nova Scotia but in Quebec as well, which province my hon. friend and I represent, is simply fading away, while it could be made one of the best industries in the whole country. If you are bound to give Australia a preference, why not keep the two-cent duty against Australia and New Zealand, which would give some support to the industry in Canada, and raise the general tariff to five cents, if you see fit? I would rather see it at two and one-half cents against Australia and five and one-half cents under the general tariff. Let there be no misundertanding; this parliament, so far as its engagements with Australia go, is absolutely free to-day to make that change.

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James Alexander Robb: I wish to correct that statement at once. My hon. friend, who is a good lawyer, will understand that we made a solemn agreement with Australia that they would be allowed in here under a tariff of one-half cent per pound. If we now jack it up to ten cents per pound can they put any mutton into this country? The trouble with my hon. friend's theory is that he wants to sell to all the world but does not want to buy anywhere. Yesterday it was agricultural implements; to-day it is mutton; to-morrow it will be automobiles, but in every case my hon. friend thinks he can always sell and never buy.
Mr. CAHANIf I may be allowed to answer that statement, when this country gets back to economic common sense it will be the judgment of this parliament as well that we should not buy abroad, giving employment to foreign industries and foreign farmers and producers, those things which this country is better suited to produce than almost any other country in the world. Australia has exceptional advantages through years of experience in sheep raising on a large scale, but there is no reason why we should not have production of sheep in this country on a much larger scale than is the case at present.


James Alexander Robb: I will admit at once that we would have much more if some of the city and country dogs were muzzled. They are a greater menace to the sheep industry of eastern Canada than is the tariff.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: If the dogs who sit on the government benches, not the farmers' dogs-


James Alexander Robb: I do not ask my hon. friend to withdraw that statement; the public will judge him by it.


Mr. JACOBS:: I think the hon. gentleman really means the watch dogs.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: I did not mean any unpleasant inference, but simply the watch dogs across the way.


Donald Sutherland: I asked the Minister of Finance to give us the principle upon which this reduction was based; aparently it is with a view to purchasing mutton from Australia. He has frankly admitted that if you put the tariff up it is going to shut out from this country the Australian products implying also that Canada is not capable of producing the mutton and lamb required for our own people. Surely no other inference can be taken from the minister's statement. Let me quote the statement of the Minister of Trade and Commerce of Australia when this matter first came before the Australian parliament on September 26, 1924. He refers to the fact that they are anxious to secure markets for their primary products, whereas Canada is anxious to secure a market for manufactured goods. He goes on to refer to the agreement which had been arrived at, and states:
We can readily imagine that the concessions proposed by Canada on primary products,-
Proposed by the Canadian minister, not by Australia. We went there seeking to make a trade treaty with a country with whom we had a tremendous favourable balance of trade in our past dealings. The minister there went on to say:
We can readily imagine that the concessions proposed by Canada on primary products, of which she is a large producer, will lead to criticism by representatives of Canadian primary producers on the ground that their interests are being sacrificed to Canada's need for markets (for manufactured goods.
These so-called advocates of the common people, who are denouncing this party as friends of the big interests. Let me ask the minister whose interests were looked after by the government when they sacrificed the interests of those engaged in agriculture in this country in order to obtain this treaty. They made a similar treaty with New Zealand, a few days before the last general election, which has never been submitted to this parliament. Let me also remind the minister, when he says parliament put this law into effect, that many of those who voted in favour of that treaty are not to-day members of this House, having been defeated at the polls. This is a live question in this country to-day, and especially so when the government will not come into the open and let the people know where they stand and upon what grounds they base their interference with tariff stability. This continual interference, and tinkering, not knowing what the views of the government are, is a most disturbing factor in the country to-day; the people do not know what is going to be attempted next. With regard to the tariff board of which we have heard so much, the minister says, it is purely a board to investigate. After they investigate what are they going to do?


The CHAIRMAN:: Order. I must ask
the hon. gentleman to confine his remarks to the subject-matter under discussion.


Donald Sutherland: The minister having dealt with the matter, I assumed that I would be permitted to refer to his remarks. I ask, upon what grounds does the minister base the fixing of this item in the tariff? In other countries they have

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tariff commissions. For instance, in the United States a short time ago the tariff commission took steps to ascertain the cost of production of butter in Denmark. They reported to the United States government that it was produced there for 12 cents a pound less than it cost to produce similar butter in the United States. Thereupon the president put the tariff up 12 cents a pound, or an increase of 50 per cent. The same thing happened with regard to wheat. The commission reported to their government that wheat could be produced in Canada for 42 cents a bushel less than it could be produced in the United States on account of the lower cost of land and the greater yield per acre in Canada. At once the duty against Canadian wheat was raised 42 cents a bushel.
Now, the minister would surely be well advised to ascertain the cost of producing meats in Australia, New Zealand, United States and in the Dominion. Does he contend that it is not possible to produce mutton and lamb in this country in sufficient quantities to supply the home demand? Is this country not producing all that is required along that line? If the minister takes that ground, I suppose it is some justification for his action, because while our friends opposite advocate free trade in relation to many things that can be and are produced in this country, yet they are strong protectionists when it comes to certain commodities that we do not produce. By way of illustration, let me point out that the tariff on tea is ten cents a pound. Does the minister think he is going to grow tea in this country? Here, however, is an item which we can produce in abundance and have a surplus for export. But there is always the danger of a tremendous importation of this commodity, just as happened this year in regard to butter. In that instance it will be remembered the government had to step in and apply the dumping clause because eight million pounds had been imported during the last few months. Their action, I contend, is absolutely unsound and not based on the principles underlying the dumping clause in the tariff. These are some of the anomalies in regard to our tariff, and I think the minister would be well advised to ascertain the cost of production of meat and meat products in this country as compared with the cost in the United States and other countries.
Let me point out, Mr. Chairman, that in other countries they do not call a tariff item "protection." My friends to the left rather imagine that every item in a tariff constitutes a certain degree of protection. The United States tariff commission refer to it
IMr. D. Sutherland.]
as follows: For example, the existing duty on a particular commodity does not equalize, as between the foreign and domestic manufacturer, the production costs ascertained as provided in the statute. It is the function of the commission to make investigations to assist the president to find a rate which will tend to correct the inequality. Now, if those commodities can be produced in another country cheaper than in this country, is not that a sound argument for affording a corresponding degree of protection, particularly on an item such as this? Meats and meat products are things that this country can produce in abundance, but the government is doing nothing to encourage those engaged in raising live stock; in fact, it is not making the slightest attempt to redeem the promises contained in the Speech from the Throne to induce farmers to remain on the land and also to persuade those who have had training in agriculture but are now living in urban centres to go back to the land. Does the minister think he is carrying out those promises by removing the small degree of protection our farmers have?
There is a scheme on foot to give the farmers in this country what is termed rural credits. They are not asking for rural credits. They are asking the government for some reasonable degree of protection. Let the government give them a fair chance. Do not allow the surplus products of another country. products which can be produced cheaper than in Canada, come in here and deprive our farmers of their home market. The minister states: Why, we are doing this for some reason. But the Minister of Trade and Commerce in Australia has given us the reason in specific terms: This government has sacrificed our agricultural interests in order to obtain a market for our pulp and paper people. That was the big consideration which impelled the government to move in this direction. If the minister is well advised he will change the item in the general tariff from three and one-half cents to five cents a pound. I am satisfied that this will be a stroke in the right direction and wall result in greater benefit to this country than anything the government has attempted since it came into office.


Ernest Frederick Armstrong: Mr. Chairman, I do not propose to allow the minister to set aside the statement which I have made in regard to the development of hog cholera in this country being largely due to the importation of pork from the United States by saying that he and the Minister of Agriculture will talk this matter over before finally disposing of it. It is a matter

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for the Minister of Finance to take into consideration at this time when he is dealing with the tariff. He	can	raise the generaltariff	and shut	out	pork	from the UnitedStates; or if not he can do just exactly what	the United States	would do undersimilar circumstances, he can place an embargo against that pork. I would ask the minister again if that was a fair statement for him to make, that by merely consulting with the Minister of Agriculture the matter would be considered. Why is it not possible for him to consider it now and deal with it either by raising the general tariff against pork and pork	products	-from,	the	United States or
placing an embargo against their importation? If those products from the States are responsible for the hog cholera that has developed in different parts of this country, especially in my district, then either of the remedies I have suggested should be applied at once.


James Alexander Robb: Mr. Chairman, when I became a member of parliament in 1908 one of the first members I met was my hon. friend from East Lamibton, who has been in this House as long as I have with the exception of the few years when we missed his genial countenance ,and he knows as well as I know that we have statutory authority to place an embargo against the importation of animals if it is found that they are suffering from any contagious disease. As a matter of fact the Department of Agriculture does apply this remedy occasionally. Now, if my hon. friend can establish to the satisfaction of the Minister of Agriculture that there is hog cholera prevailing anywhere in any of the states whence we are importing hogs, the minister of that department will be the first to stop the importation.


Ernest Frederick Armstrong: Would
the minister allow me to answer him now? At the first meeting of the agricultural committee the Deputy Minister of Agriculture gave an address, in the course of which he referred to the importation of pork from the United States, and he said in my presence and in the presence of other members of that committee that this importation was responsible for the hog cholera that had developed in this country. I would think that sufficient justification for the Minister of Agriculture to apply the embargo right away.


Mr. VALLANCE:: With respect to what
the hon. gentleman has just stated, may I say that the deputy minister was asked if it was possible for hog cholera to find entrance through the importation of dead meat. His reply was that it was quite possible, just as every farmer knows that it is.


Alfred (Fred) Davis: As a member of the Sheepbreeders' Association of the province of Alberta, and being a sheepbreeder myself, I fully appreciate the importance of this industry. I want to impress upon the government that if the sheepbreeding industry is to be maintained in this country as if should be the Canadian duty on Australian and New Zealand mutton will have to be changed. If the government want to destroy that industry all they have to do is to leave the duly where it is. Let me say in that connection that the people of Canada through their respective governments have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in developing the industry to its present stage. In every province the government have been spending money year after year buying the very best of stock and distributing it among the farmers with that object in view. I know of cases where the owners of herds of sheep-


James Alexander Robb: Flocks.


Alfred (Fred) Davis: Flocks or herds-have lost
a considerable sum of money since the adoption of the Australian treaty. Furthermore, I am positive it is going to have the effect of driving quite a number of the men engaged in this industry out of the business. I venture the statement that we should conserve the Canadian market for everything we can -produce. Our object should be to stimulate to the greatest extent possible every Canadian industry. In the interests of this particular industry I urge the minister to reconsider his decision in this matter.


Sir GEORGE PERLEY:: I wish to say a few words in support of the view expressed by the hon. member for East Calgary (Mr. Davis). I am one of those who believe in the idea that we should protect our own people; that so far as possible we should produce or grow at home everything we need for our own use; and if any class in the community is entitled to protection it is the Canadian farmer.
I have listened to the hon. member ior St. Lawrence-St. George (Mr. Cahan) and the minister discussing the question of the Australian rate of duty and the effect an increase in the general tariff would have upon the Australian treaty. I must say that I am not very conversant with that subject, but my feeling would be that the hon. member for St. Lawrence-St. George is right m his view. I would remind the Minister of Finance of the point raised by the hon. member for North Oxford (Mr. Sutherland) that if the raising of the general tariff to five cents is not going to affect the rate under the Aus-

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tralian treaty he can have no objection to the increase. I think the general tariff should be increased to five cents a pound, and I ask the minister to agree to that course.


Mr. EDWARDS (Frontenac):: I presume the minister has arrived at the cent rate under the general tariff in order to give a preference of three cents per pound to Australia and New Zealand under the treaty that was entered into with those dominions. But is he aware that while he taxes lamb, we will say, at 3J cents a pound the United States tariff on our lamb going into that country is four cents? It seems to me the minister should have regarded that as one reason why our tariff should be raised to some extent, at least, as against the United States; and I see no reason why, even though we have an agreement with Australia and New Zealand for a rate of half a cent a pound in their case, the general tariff should not be increased from the 3J cents proposed here. Surely there would be some semblance of logic and reason in the. minister's conduct if he did that. Manifestly he is giving Australia and New Zealand a preference of three cents a pound under the agreement entered into, and then he proposes that the general tariff against all other countries [DOT] should be 3J cents a pound. Well, I suggest to him that the general tariff as against the United States should be raised to a figure as high as their tariff against us. I am supported in making that appeal to the minister by the trade figures not simply applicable to one year but covering a period of years. For instance, if you take the five years, from 1920 to 1924 inclusive, you find that we imported from the United States in that period 274,354,713 pounds of meat, of a value of $55,442,000. Our exports of meats to the United States in the same period only amounted to $29,331,000. I cannot get away from the idea that inasmuch as our total exports for those five years amounted to
8221.000.	000-we were sending meats to all parts of the world-the reason we did not export a greater quantity to the United States was because their tariff shut out importations from Canada to a certain extent. On the other hand the reason why the United States supplied us with such large quantities was because our tariff made it possible for them to do so. In the same period we imported from Australia and New Zealand nearly
10.000.	000 pounds of meat. Our tariff was very favourable to these two dominions, being very much lower than their tariff against us. Now, how much meat did we

send to Australia and New Zealand during those years? In all only $25 worth. It is no further from Canada to Australia than it is from Australia to Canada. Australia has a surplus of meats and we have a surplus also. They are looking for markets for their surplus and so are we. But Australia says to the world through its tariff:	We do not
want your meats, we do not want your butter. We are producing more of those commodities than we know what to do with, and we propose to keep your butter and your meat out of our country in order that our people shall consume our own products. On the other hand we turn round to them and say: While you debar us from marketing our surplus in your country we throw our doors open and invite you to come in here.
There is another matter in connection with the question of meats to which I wish to draw attention. Something has already been said about the importance of protecting the sheep industry. There is this further fact that should be noted:	We permit wool to come
into this country free. But if we have any wool to export and want to send it to the United States they charge us a duty going as high as 42 cents a pound. I think it is utterly impossible to give any encouragement to the sheep industry in Canada if we not only expose the raisers of sheep in this country to the importation of the surplus production of mutton and lamb from Australia and New Zealand, but also expose them to the free importation of wool. That is not a fair deal. We have only about two and three-quarter million head of sheep and lambs in Canada and there are certain climatic conditions which militate against us in competing with countries like Australia and New Zealand where the sheep and lambs number
104,000,000. Australia and New Zealand are the greatest meat exporting countries in the world; they have advantages in the production of meat which we have not in Canada. I say to the minister this afternoon what I have said repeatedly in this House:	However much people may theorize along free trade lines, we cannot and should not get away from the practical, and we cannot and should not shut our eyes to the fact that we have a winter in Canada which puts our farmers at a disadvantage in competing with countries such as Australia, New Zealand, Argentine and the Southern States. In regard to the sheep industry, you have only to travel over Canada to be impressed with this, no matter where you go. The province of Nova Scotia, parts of Ontario and Quebec, and certainly parts of the west, particularly Al-

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berta, are specially adapted for the production of first class sheep, and if encouraged as they should be encouraged, I believe that industry will grow. I appeal to the minister in this regard, and I say that his tariff is illogical from the standpoint of looking after our own, in giving Australia and New Zealand a preference of three cents . per pound. It is also illogical, though not to the same extent, in giving United States a preference of half a cent a pound on meat. If he will tell me any reason on earth why we should allow lamb to come into this country from the United States under a tariff of half a cent less than they charge us I should like to hear it. It does not occur to me what the reason can be. It seems to be illogical and unfair, and I think that it can only have one effect on this industry, and that is to drive it out of existence altogether.


Donald Sutherland: I did not point out when I was on my feet before that the American tariff is 20 per cent against our meat exports going into that country, and if the suggestion I made were put into effect, namely a tariff increase to five cents a pound, even though it applied to the trade treaties with New [DOT]Zealand and Australia, it would still leave the tariff as low as two cents a pound on mutton and lamb coming in from those countries, which is altogether too low and unfair. When I said five cents a pound I did not feel that that was as high as the tariff should be in that respect, because there is no lack of facilities in this country for producing everything that is required along that line. I therefore move, seconded by the hon. member for East Calgary (Mr. Davis):	.
That the tariff item number 7 in the general tariff be amended by striking out the figure cents and inserting in lieu thereof the figure 5 cents.


James Alexander Robb: I direct your attention to what I am sure you already know, and what surely my genial friend the former Minister of Finance knows, that the amendment is out of order.


Henry Lumley Drayton: On what ground?


James Alexander Robb: It increases taxation. However I am in the judgment of the committee.


Mr. MANION:: Speaking to the point of order. I submit it is not necessarily an increase of taxation at all. You may raise the tariff, and you may not import the pork, and if there is no importation, there is no taxation whatever. Therefore I submit it is not necessarily an increase of taxation at all. If the amendment is not out of order on some other ground than that, then it is in order.


William Duff: Sir Thomas Erskine
May, at page 462, says:
The principle that the sanction of the crown must be given to every grant of money drawn from the public revenue, applies equally to the taxation levied to provide that revenue. No motion can therefore be made to impose a tax, save by a minister of the crown, unless such tax be in substitution, by way of equivalent, for taxation at that moment submitted to the consideration of parliament; nor can the amount of tax proposed on behalf of the crown be augmented, nor any alteration made in the area of imposition. In 1'ke manner, no increase can be considered either of an existing, or of a new or temporary tax for the service of the year, except on the initiative of a minister, acting on behalf of the crown.
Then again May, at page 463, says:
So long as an existing tax is not increased, any modification of the proposed reduction may be introduced in the committee on the bill, and is regarded as a question, not for increasing the charge upon the people, but for determining to what extent such charge shall be reduced.
I therefore have to rule the amendment is out of order.


James Alexander Robb: Now that we have got back to order again, may I just place on record the facts about the sheep industry of Canada and the injury to trade by importations. For the year 1926 we exported of mutton $593,475, and we imported $269,145; or in other words we exported almost double the quantity we imported. My hon. friend from Frontenac (Mr. Edwards) has referred to the duty imposed by the United States. He will be interested to know that out of our total exports of $593,475, $523,130 was exported to the United States.


Simon Fraser Tolmie: With regard to the matter of importation of pork, I may say that it is generally accepted that hog cholera can be conveyed to other animals by the fresh, or even cured meat, of an infected hog. We have provided against that disease in Canada by quarantining live hogs for a period of about two months at the boundary line, making it impossible to import hogs for slaughter under those conditions, on account of the heavy cost of the quarantine. We have also recognized that fact in our garbage feeding regulations of the Department of Agriculture, whereby garbage feeders are compelled to cook all garbage very thoroughly before feeding, and we have other regulations in connection therewith.
With regard to the minister's remark concerning the period in which I was Minister of Agriculture, and my failure at that time to impose a tariff on American mutton or sheep, or to increase that tariff, let me say that I went into office late in 1919, and I went out after the earthquake in December 6, 1921. The hon. minister will no doubt

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remember that during that period the American government were considering the increasing of their tariff on agricultural products, and at that time it would have been in my opinion very injudicious indeed for us to aggravate the situation by making any suggestion for an increased tariff on this side. I would like to point out to the minister that they have occupied the treasury benches since December, 1921, up to the present moment, and have done nothing in the way of giving the farmers and producers on the land of this country any increased protection.


James Alexander Robb: Now when we are trying to give them that protection you stop us.


Simon Fraser Tolmie: You now propose to take off the protection against the greatest sheep and lamb producing countries in the world, and put it on as against the United States.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: I have before me now
chapter 30 of the statutes of Canada of 1925 giving the provisions in relation to the British preferential tariff concessions made by Australia to Canada and vice versa. It is true that in the schedule under tariff item 7, meats fresh n.o.p., the tariff rate is one-half cent a pound, but in the act of ratification and in the treaty itself it is provided as follows:
Provided that the proportionate difference between the rates set out opposite the items above enumerated in this schedule and the general tariff rates under the said items respectively shall at no time be less than it is at the time when the said above-mentioned rates come into force.
Under that provision it is very clear that this parliament, within the rights reserved under the treaty with Australia, can raise the tariff on importations on fresh meats from that country ito any rate per pound this parliament may in its discretion deem advisable, provided that the general tariff rate is raised proportionately or to exactly the same extent.


Mr. FORKE:: We suffer from several disadvantages at this end of the chamber. We do not as a rule hear what is going on; we miss many of the speeches, and we have great difficulty in catching the eye of the chairman. I am sure I have several times risen ahead of any other member, but I have failed to catch the chairman's eye. We have however to put up with those little disadvantages. It has been suggested that we have another chairman at this end of the chamber. So much has been said regarding the deplorable condition in which the sheep industry finds itself at present that I feel I must say a few words on the matter. I am not wholly a wheat farmer; I raise both

cattle and sheep. There is no part of the industrial life of the farm that is at the present time so profitable as sheep raising and I am going to give the House the exact figures as to the price I received for my lambs last year. I sold the lambs from their mothers, without their getting any other feed than they got from their mothers, and the grass they got, at $10.50 apiece. That means $21 from one ewe. The ewe got nothing but some straw and hay, costing almost a trifle, to bring her through the winter, and in the spring a little grain and the roughage she could pick up in the yard. Under such circumstances when you get $21 from one ewe in addition to the value of her fleece, I do not know of any other agricultural pursuit in the Dominion that pays as well as sheep raising. There are in connection with sheep raising some disadvantages to which I want my friends to the right to pay attention. One great disadvantage at present is the price of fencing, because there is a duty of 30 per cent on woven wire. I want the hon. member for South Oxford (Mr. Sutherland) who is so anxious to help the sheep-raising industry to get woven wire fencing down to the lowest possible price.


Donald Sutherland: Did the removal of the duty lower the cost of barbed wire? Did it not raise the price?


Robert Forke: We will take a chance in
any case. In regard to wolves, all the wolves in Canada are not after the sheep. There is no doubt this is a serious drawback on the prairies in connection with sheep-raising and woven wire fencing with a mesh too small for wolves to get through would be of advantage so that sheep raisers would be greatly assisted if the price of wire fencing were reduced. On everything you sell the cost of production has a great deal to do with the profits likely to be made. As regards agriculture, our complaint is that everything we buy is too dear.


John Wesley Edwards: What is
the duty on wire fencing?


Robert Forke: I cannot say exactly. I
think it is about 30 per cent. Some of my hon. friends would expect me to be a walking encyclopedia when I begin to speak, but I am not that. As farmers we have always claimed that we are able to compete with our products in the markets of the world and we are not complaining so much about the products regarding which my hon. friends are asking this afternoon. Anyone who has studied agricultural conditions knows that all the agricultural importations into Canada will not make much difference. President

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Coolidge said the other day that within the lifetime of his hearers the United States would be the greatest agricultural importing country in the world. The United States does not balance its budget to-day on agriculture; it is importing instead of exporting so far as the balance is concerned. I know of course it exports meats, wheat and cotton, but the day is approaching very fast when those exportations will cease and that will be Canada's day. The Canadian agriculturist can compete with the farmer anywhere else in the world if he has a fair chance and is able to produce at the cost at which he ought to be able to produce. I want to tell my hon. friends that when they talk of benefiting agriculture they begin at the wrong end. I notice a tremendous difference between this parliament and the last one in this regard. In the last parliament the whole stress was on industry, but in this parliament there is a new move. The board of strategy must have been at work again and the whole idea to-day is to teach the farmer that he can be benefited by protection. I hope he will never fall for that.


Robert James Manion: I have listened to the
hon. member for Brandon (Mr. Forke) and he is hardly fair when he makes any such statement as he made when he sat down, namely, that in the last parliament we were not interested in farming; that we were interested only in what he called industry. In the first place all people in this country admit that farming is the greatest industry of all; but even laying that aside, our whole attitude has been since I have been in this House-and I have been here for some ten years-to protect all classes of producers in Canada. This has not been any move of the so-called board of strategy-and I do not know where that name came from- but it is a move on the part of the Conservative party, in consistently living up to the policy of protection, to endeavour to build up all the different industries, the farming industry, the manufacturing industry and the industry of the labouring people of this country by a consistent policy of protection. Among his last words he quoted something from President Coolidge. I would suggest that he quote what Mr. Coolidge said a short time ago when he declared that the duty on butter should be increased from eight cents to twelve cents-while our duty against American butter was only four cents. Why *did President Coolidge make that statement? Simply because the farmers of the United States had asked him for protection against Canadian butter going into that country.
When therefore the hon. gentleman undertakes to quote President Coolidge he ought to quote him in full.
Hon. gentlemen opposite are inclined to charge us with playing politics when we speak in the interests of the Canadian farmer.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Hear, hear.


Robert James Manion: Hon. gentlemen say "hear, hear": evidently they judge us by themselves. I do not know how many farmers there are in this section of the House, and indeed I shall take the trouble some day to count them up. But I can say without the slightest hesitation that there are a large number of farmers in this party, gentlemen who have made a success of agriculture, who are just as vitally interested in the welfare of agriculture in Canada as are other hon. gentlemen who presume to speak on behalf of the farmers of Canada. Any man with ordinary intelligence-and I hope we are all intelligent enough to understand the facts-must believe that the good of the farmers is the good of Canada. We believe in protecting the farmers, whether they be sheep growers or any other class.
Now to come to the item under discussion. I have not taken the trouble to retain in my mind the figures which I have seen myself, but I am informed that Canada has .probably the smallest number of sheep of any agricultural country in the world. Someone says that Australia, for example, has at least forty times the number of sheep we raise in Canada; and more than that, the number here is steadily going down. I am not going to argue with the minister the necessity for increasing our duty on mutton and lamb coming into Canada from Australia, because apparently he has made up his mind that there shall be no changes in this regard, and no doubt he has enough support to carry out his intention. I will, however, argue this point with him. When the Australian treaty was first discussed the basis upon which it was con-5 p.m. sidered was the desire of Australia for higher duties on nearly every commodity which she might ship into Canada when those commodities come from other countries; and it was only after extended negotiations between the present minister (Mr. Robb) and the Australian government that it was decided to concede these low duties to the United States and other countries on many of the products which the Australian producers are exporting to this country. In short, they aimed at an increase to other countries in the duties on goods they wanted to sell to Canada, and it is obvious that Australia would be only
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too glad to have our duty on mutton and lamb increased to other countries so long as it was reduced to Australian sheep raisers. I submit to the minister, therefore, that so far as this item is concerned he will only be carrying out his treaty agreement with Australia by shutting out a large proportion of mutton coming from the United States by imposing a protective tariff against that country. Such a duty against the United States would serve the double purpose of fulfilling the treaty with Australia-indeed, it would enhance the value of the treaty to that country-and, to some extent, of assisting the Canadian sheep industry in so far as it would protect our producers against the United States. What harm an increase in duty against United States producers could1 do to the raisers of sheep in Canada is something that passes my comprehension. It certainly could do nothing but improve the position of the industry in Canada. No matter what the hon. member for Brandon (Mr. Forke) may think of protection in general, I do not think he should have any objection whatever to the sheep growers, himself included, making a greater profit out of the industry by securing the home market.


Robert Forke: The United States farmer has been deceived in the belief that protection would do something for him and I do not want the farmers in Canada to be deceived in the same way.


Robert James Manion: I do not want to be in
any way offensive to my hon. friend, but it seems to me that the hon. gentleman has the idea that the only farmers who have any intelligent grasp of fiscal matters come from Brandon and vicinity. I fancy that the farmers of the United States are sufficiently intelligent to understand their own interests, and they have consistently demanded of the United States President, and received from him, an increase in the tariff on agricultural products going into the United States from Canada.


Robert Forke: The hon. member knows
very! iwell that agriculture in tha United States, especially in the northwest, is in a deplorable condition, and that the farmers are asking the government to take care of their surplus products.


Robert James Manion: That only adds force to
what I say: they want the United States government to protect them in every way. If the hon. member will look up the figures he will find that since the Fordney tariff went into force the exports from Canada to the United States in respect of a large number

of agricultural products have declined manyfold. Now, for the life of me I cannot understand the attitude of any farmer in Canada who feels that we should treat the American farmer or, for that matter, any producer in the United States, with any greater degree of consideration than they are prepared to show us. I think we should improve the sheep industry of this country in every possible way, and one means of doing so would be an increase in the duty on mutton and lamb coming from the United States, even if we leave the duty on imports coming from Australia at the figure which the minister proposes.
The argument is frequently put forward that unless you sell you cannot buy; there must be freedom of trade. How is it that some of the most highly protected countries in the world, such as Germany before the war, the United States to-day and France, if you will, keep on trading with other nations on such a large scale in face of the high protection they maintain? They keep on trading because they buy such lines of goods as they do not themselves produce, and export such goods as are not protected or produced in other countries. Trade is always going on between countries, and the fact that we may protect the sheep industry in this country is not going to stop our trading with the rest of the world.


An hon. MEMBER:: Is my hon. friend
aware that our foreign trade per capita is three times that of the United States?


Robert James Manion: I do not know that that has anything to do with the question, inasmuch as what is of importance to any country is not the foreign trade but internal business, the ability of the people to buy and sell among themselves and to provide work and wages for their workers rather than force them to go to highly protected countries to seek a living.


William Duff: Several hon. gentlemen are rising in their places evidently to ask questions of the hon. member who has the floor. I must point out that if the work of the committee is to proceed we cannot have a second budget debate. Hon. gentlemen must allow the member for Fort William (Mr. Manion) to continue uninterruptedly.


Robert James Manion: I am nearly through anyway, Mr. Chairman. I saw many of my good friends from Saskatchewan, whose views are supposedly the quintessence of all that is in the interests of the farmers, waiting for an opportunity to differ from me. Let me make one more appeal to them; it is this. Let us

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treat the United States, in relation to all branches of industry, including the raising of sheep and the production of mutton, lamb and wool, in the only way in which one self-respecting people should treat another. Let us adopt the honourable and the proud principle of doing unto them as they do unto us, and we shall secure their respect. The only principle on which we shall ever be able to transact business with them to our own satisfaction is to deal with -them in a strictly businesslike way.


James Alexander Robb: I am very glad, Mr. Chairman, that you directed our attention to the fact that this is not a second budget debate, nor is tire Australian treaty under consideration. I think I have sinned as much as anyone else in that regard. As I explained, this increase in the general tariff is to meet the agreement with Australia providing for a three-cent preference, but there is no lowering or changing of the Australian treaty. They say a woman has the right to change her mind occasionally and perhaps a member of parliament also has that right. The hon. member who has just taken his seat was not opposed to the Australian agreement last year, and all we are asking now is to carry out this agreement. I recall that the hon. member for Fort William (Mr. Manion) was one of those who came to. my room urging that this Australian treaty be proceeded with. Let me tell my hon. friend, as well as other hon. gentlemen who have criticized this Australian agreement, that they may not criticize it very long if they continue to pursue their present tactics. Australia will settle that, and Australia may settle it very quickly. Some of the gentlemen who came canvassing me to put this agreement through will have to take the responsibility if Australia cancels an agreement which has been very profitable to this country.


Donald Sutherland: Would the minister inform us in what way it has been profitable to Canada? Has not the favourable balance of trade decreased?


James Alexander Robb: We have increased our trade
enormously, and the farmers who supply , the foodstuffs for the men working in the paper mills, and those men as well, all receive additional benefits. The hon. member for Fort William not only urged me to put this treaty through when there was some doubt whether it would be proceeded with, but he was one of those who loyally stood up and voted for it. To-day he attempts to delay the passing of an item which is designed to carry out that agreement.


Robert James Manion: I ask the privilege of
replying for a moment or two. The minister has implied that I was inconsistent this afternoon in relation to what I said last year.
I do not think I have shown any inconsistency; no man either in or out of this House ever heard me attack the Australian treaty, in which attitude I am at some difference with hon. members around me. But I would like my hon. friend to be fair; I said this afternoon that he could do something to enhance the value of this treaty to the Australian people by raising the duty on sheep and mutton coming from the United States. I do not criticize anything he said about my having been one of those who asked him to put this treaty through. As a matter of fact I gave my reasons for so doing last year; if I had Hansard I could read my own words, but I said that I thought the Australian treaty was in some ways bad for the farmers of this country. At the same time, since northern Ontario was a large producer of pulp and paper; since I represent a constituency in that part of the province, and since the pulp and paper interests were deriving some benefit from this treaty, I must take the lesser of the two evils. But it will also appear in Hansard that I said then that if we got back into power, as I thought we were going to after the last election-


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Hear, hear.


Robert James Manion: We did virtually get into power, although we do not now have the reins of power. My good friend the Minister of Finance and his confreres are too fond of power to give it up so long as they can get a group of any kind to support them. 1 want to point out that in making that statement last year I said that the first thing I would advocate if we got into power would be a general, all round increase of the tariff on agricultural products from every other country of the world. So I was absolutely consistent, and if the Minister of Finance thinks he is frightening me at all by threatening that Australia will cancel the treaty, he has another thought coming to him. I am not so easily frightened as all that; it is up to the people of Australia. My argument is that we can enhance the value of this treaty to the Australian people and improve conditions in this country as well by treating other countries as they have treated us.


Mr. McGIBBON:: I only rise because of the remarks of the hon. member for Brandon (Mr. Forke). I would like to tell him that there were men in this House advocating the cause of the farmers and workmen of this
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country long before he had a seat here, and I was among them. There will be those advocating this cause long after he is out of this House as well. I might say, too, that I represent a constituency which had two representatives supporting the party to my left .and the party opposite during the last election; neither of them came back.


William Duff: I cannot allow the hon. gentleman to get away from the item under [DOT]discussion. I allowed a great deal of latitude, especially to the Minister of Finance and the hon. member for Fort William, but I cannot .allow it to go further.


Peter McGibbon: Very well, Mr. Chairman; I gladly acquiesce in your ruling. I started to say that I represent the farmers of a large constituency who want protection on sheep, on wool, on beef of all kinds, and in fact on everything produced by the farmer. The hon. member for Brandon said that the sheep raising industry is one of the most profitable on the farm. If that is his judgment It is not the judgment of the great body of farmers of this country. In support of that statement all I have to say is that there are less sheep in Canada to-day than there were "thirty years ago, and that the proportion of sheep in this country as compared with other *countries is very small. I might also tell "the hon. member that of the seventy million pounds of wool used in this country, only fifteen million pounds is produced here. If "this is such a profitable undertaking as he would lead us to believe, why does this condition of affairs exist? I would also point out to him and to the Minister of Finance -that the actions of this government, especially in the French treaty, have hurt the sheep industry very much. I simply point out that the importation of woollen goods has increased 500 per cent since that treaty was made. Now we have this government practically slaughtering the protection on fresh meat.
I am not a lawyer, but I have a great deal [DOT]of respect for the opinions of the hon. member for St. Lawrence-St. George (Mr. Cahan) who sits in front of me. This House is bound by the Australian treaty until notice of cancellation is given, and we must keep the agreement. If Australia sees fit to break it, I think it would be a godsend to Canada. I .am not one who advocates the giving of preferences to a few manufactu ~ers of pulp and paper-who, by the way, aro not Canadian citizens, if I am correctly informed-as ngainst the interests of our farmers. I would recommend to the minister that he adopt *the suggestion of the hon. member for St.

Lawrence-St. George and raise the duty to five cents per pound, which will give Australia the preference we are bound to give and at the same time provide additional protection to this great industry in Canada. It must be protected, Mr. Chairman, if it is to succeed. There is not enough protection given to it to-day to enable it to continue and thrive. As representing what is largely an agricultural constituency in this province, I am here to voice the requirements of the people in the way of more protection not only for live stock but for everything they grow. I hope the minister will act upon that suggestion.


Mr. FOSTER:: Mr. Chairman, when any
subject is raised in this House which has for its object the protection of our farmers, I am always ready to support it. In the part of the countiy from which I oome we are not able to produce meats, simply because of competition from other sources, largely from the United States. In fact, in the county of Hants-Kings it is not an uncommon thing to find United States butter, eggs and meats served in the very heart of an agricultural country. I notice my hon. friend from Yarmouth is listening to that, and I hope he will take it into consideration, because he can go into practically any store in that section of the country and find those commodities on sale. In the province of Nova Scotia we are trying to build up a meat-producing industry. There is not any question but that we can produce live stock in Nova Scotia to ship to the 'Old Country in competition with any other part of Canada. True, it can be raised cheaper in the western provinces, but the difference in freight rates gives us almost an even break.


William Duff: I must ask the hon.
member to confine his remarks to the item under discussion.


George Eulas Foster: I will come ,to that in a
moment, Mr. Chairman. All these things arise out of what we are discussing here. My hon. friend from Brandon deviated slightly from the subject matter a moment ago to tell us that the farmers of the northwestern states were in such a precarious condition that they were asking congress to pass a bill to increase the price of their surplus products. Since 1921 the farmers in those states have been enjoying such enviable prosperity that it has been practically impossible for our twenty-one government agents in the United States to bring any of them over to Canada. If their condition is not somewhat better than the condition of our farmers, why do they not come across the line?

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Charles A. Stewart: It is because they have not money enough to move.
(Mr. FOSTER:	The minister gets his . information second or third hand, and I happen to have mine first hand.


Charles A. Stewart: He gets his information from the government agents.


George Eulas Foster: Quite so; I appreciate that the igovemment agents give him his information. I know them very well, I know the territory in which they work, and I know the conditions under which they work, but the minister himself does not know.


Charles A. Stewart: Oh, yes, he does. He has visited those localities.


George Eulas Foster: Has he been down there?
He made one trip to Chicago.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Question.


William Duff: Order.


George Eulas Foster: I cannot quite hear what
hon. gentlemen opposite are saying, but if they have any idea that I am going to get excited and lose my temper they are very much mistaken. I was merely pointing out that the hon. minister went to Chicago once and met the Canadian government agents there. So far as I know, he has never been out in the territory with any one of those agents and interviewed an3^ American farmers. Therefore when I say he has not first hand information, I am merely pointing out what is the fact. I agree with him that in many cases those farmers have not sufficient money to move, but many of them have. But let me go a step further and make the point I was endeavouring to make in reply to the hon. member for Brandon. Through the northwestern states there are farms which in 1921 and 1922 had fallen from $600 an acre down to $250, but they have come back to $350 and $400 an acre, and the firm of Wood Brothers in Lincoln, Nebraska, made over $7,000,000 on farm lands in two states alone that had risen in value as a result of improved farming conditions. Those are the facts It is true that the farmers of the United States were helped by their government-
-Some hon. MEMBERS:	Order.


Mr. COOTE:: Mr. Chairman, I rise to a
point of order. I ask that the speeches in this debate be limited to the item under discussion.


George Eulas Foster: I know, Mr. Chairman,
that we always have points of order raised when we endeavour to answer any of the statements made by hon. gentlemen to the
left in regard to the farmers of the United States. My hon. friend from Brandon wandered over this territory himself, and he was allowed to proceed. I merely want to point out to him that agriculture was assisted in that highly protected country to the extent of $50,000,000 from government sources and over $50,000,000 from private sources, that the sheep and other live stock industries throughout the northwestern states were taken care of by the government of that highly protected country, and that as a result those farmers "came back." This government had the same opportunity to do something for the farmers of 'Canada if the ordinary methods of protection did not apply. Let me come to another point in regard to Australia. I-


William Duff: I did allow some
latitude to three or four members but it was my mistake, and I certainly cannot allow any further departure from the item under discussion.


George Eulas Foster: I want to say a word or
two in regard to the tariff.


Mr. WARD:: Is the hon. gentleman aware that the statistics of the United States go to show that in that highly protected country ten million people have left the farms within the last ten years?


William Duff: Are we going back to
a second budget debate? I say no. I must ask hon. members to confine their remarks to the particular item under discussion.


George Eulas Foster: Mr. Chairman, it will take
me only a minute to-


William Duff: Order. I say there is noit going to be any further irrelevant discussion.


George Eulas Foster: I am awfully sorry that
1 cannot reply to my hon. friend.


William Duff: I rule the discussion
is out of order.


George Eulas Foster: Then, Sir, I shall proceed
with the item of tariff. On this item I think it is competent for us to point out that in Australia they have a protective policy, and the basis of that policy is to protect everything that can be manufactured in Australia, and to buy everything else in Great Britain. Those are the facts as taken from the official records of the Commonwealth. Now, if we in this House are endeavouring not only to protect ourselves by the tariff against the United States but at the same time are trying to do something to help Australia and protect ourselves, I am for that protection. I apprehend that

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that is what this item is intended to do. I regret 'that under the ruling of the chairman I cannot go further into the subject. I appreciate his good nature. But there are some facts with regard to the wheat business of Australia and United States which hon. gentlemen to my left do not seem to have grasped, although I admit they have studied the statistics very carefully, and perhaps on the next item we may have a chance to discuss those facts.


William Duff: Shall the item carry?


John Wesley Edwards: No, Mr. Chairman. A short time ago I asked a question of the Minister of Finance in regard to this item. Perhaps he did not intend to evade the question, but he certainly did not answer it. He gave me some figures in regard to our exports of meat and said that a certain amount went to the United States. But I asked the hon. minister to give me some reason, if he could, why our general tariff should not be raised against the United States or any other country, with the exception of Australia and New Zealand. That is the question which he did not see fit to answer. I endeavoured, Mr. Chairman, to point out the reason why I thought that item should be increased as against the United States, and I gave figures, which the minister will not dispute that so far as meats are concerned-since this is what we are dealing with-in estimating what tariff we should have against the United States, if we consider our imports from and our exports to that country, it shows that they are sending us two or three times as much as we are sending them. That does seem to me to be a good reason why the general tariff of 3J cents should be raised. I do not suppose that Australia or New Zealand will object to a greater preference than three cents per pound. They are entitled under the agreement with Canada to a preference of three cents and it it not likely they would object ito an increase in that amount. I would ask the minister again to give me some reason why, in view of our imports from and our exports to the United States, our general tariff on meats should be lower against that country than their tariff is against us. In my judgment, Mr. Chairman, you have ruled quite properly that it is not competent for any private member to propose an increase in a tariff item; any such proposition must come from a minister of the crown. But I think I can point to instances where a member, other than a member of the government, has moved to reduce an item in the tariff. I [think it is 
within the privilege of any member of this House to move to reduce a tariff item. I call that fact, if I may, particularly to the attention of the hon. member for Brandon (Mr. Forke) who interjected something with reference to fencing. It is within the privilege of the hon. member for Brandon to move a reduction in the tariff on many of these items which in general talk he has condemned, but I venture to say he will not do it. The hon. gentleman has referred to a "board of strategy", but there is another board in existence. My hon. friend should not be jealous even if there does happen to be a "board of strategy" so-called. There is another board, of which I believe he is chairman, that is a sort of supplement to the cabinet. Whether he calls that a board of strategy or a board of dictation, whatever label he puts upon it, I do not know; he knows more about the subject than I do. However, these observations are no more pertinent to the subject than were those offered by my hon. friend; I am as much out of order in expressing them as he was. But coming back again to the subject, statistics show that under the tariffs as they exist to-day between Canada and United States the latter country is exporting to Canada two or three times as much meats as we are sending to them, probably for the reason that our tariff is lower than theirs.


Mr. MacLEAN (Prince):: I hardly think that is correct.


John Wesley Edwards: Yes, it is correct. I gave the figures a moment ago covering a period of five years. It is fairer to do that than simply to give the figures for one or two months, or even one year, and the figures I gave are beyond dispute. They show that we imported from the United States in the five years from 1920 to 1924 inclusive, $55,442,000 worth, and we exported to that country in the same period $29,331,000 worth. The figures indicate that the trend of trade, so far as meats are concerned, is against us. Not only is that the case in the matter of meats but it is also true of the item of wool. I submit to the minister he would be well advised to increase the general tariff rate and give the farmers of Canada a certain amount of protection against the United States. If the minister's hands are tied by the treaty with Australia and New Zealand, that handicap does not prevail in the case of the country to the south. I therefore submit that he should seriously consider raising the general tariff on meats. The amount of increase must be left to the gov-

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ernment to decide, the responsibility rests upon them. I ask the minister again, will he give me some reason why he should not pursue that course?


Alfred Edgar MacLean: Just before this item passes-


John Wesley Edwards: If my hon. friend will permit me. I asked the minister a question for the second time and I should like him to answer.


James Alexander Robb: At an earlier period the' discussion centred around the subject of mutton. I have already placed figures on Hansard showing that we exported to the United States almost double the quantity of our imports of mutton to that country, notwithstanding the tariff against us.


Alfred (Fred) Davis: Did not those exports consist to a large extent of spring lamb?


James Alexander Robb: Even so the Canadian farmer got a good price, as the hon. member for Brandon has stated. The largest item in the imports of meat from the United States was pork. As I said before, the Canadian packers, during the slack season when they could not procure pork in sufficient quantities in Canada and in order to be able to continue operations, imported during one particular year from the United States something like
SI,000,000 worth of pork. During that same period Canada exported over $28,000,000 worth of bacon. Is it any harm for Canada to import this little million dollars' worth from the United States in order to keep plants, going, to keep down the overhead, and to meet the competition of Denmark and other countries in the matter of bacon?


Mr. CLARK:: I understand that the tariff against Australian mutton prior to the treaty
was three cents a pound?


James Alexander Robb: No, 21 cents a pound.


John Arthur Clark: And now it is one-half cent a pound?


James Alexander Robb: Yes.


John Arthur Clark: I ask the minister what in his opinion will be the effect of the change in the tariff upon the sheep industry in this country? Will it tend to decrease the flocks of sheep in Canada, or will it have the opposite effect?


James Alexander Robb: I have already given the experience as to the effect of the importations since the treaty went into force. We have imported less from New Zealand and a little more from Australia.
14011-22SJ


John Arthur Clark: I point out to the minister that a fair opportunity has not yet been afforded of judging what the ultimate effects of the treaty will be. I think that is a fair statement. I wonder whether the experts of his department, or of the Department of Agriculture, have considered carefully the effects of the reduction in the duty upon the total flock of sheep in this country.	.


James Alexander Robb: The treaty has been in force now for nine months. The Chairman has ruled other members out of order and will probably give the same ruling in my case, but if we are going to have a debate on the Australian agreement I do not object to it. Is my hon. friend opposed to the Australian agreement?


John Arthur Clark: My vote is recorded in Hansard. I do not propose to discuss the Australian treaty.


James Alexander Robb: That is safer.


John Arthur Clark: I am not now discussing the principles of the Australian treaty. I have asked the minister what I consider to be a fair question and he has-I would not like to say as usual, but certainly it is true in this case-* deliberately evaded the question. I think I am entitled to a fair statement if the minister has any information on this subject. As I stated before, I am not attempting to go beyond the question which is before the House, but I do want to come to an intelligent conclusion, if I can, as to whether or not it would be in the interest of this country to increase the general tariff to an amount beyond that proposed by the minister; and whether, in addition to that, the hon. member for St. Lawrence-St. George has put forward a proposition which is legally feasible, namely, to increase proportionately the duties on mutton from Australia. If that could be done legally it appears to me it would have a very excellent effect on the sheep raising industry of this country.


James Alexander Robb: Yes, that is a fair question.
The position taken by the hon. member for St. Lawrence-St. George, I think, can not be disputed. This parliament can put on a dollar a pound against Australian meat if they wish. Let them stop it all from coming in, and Australia will stop buying fish and pulp and paper from the Pacific coast.


John Arthur Clark: I once more express the
hope that the minister will cease threatening or going to extremes.


James Alexander Robb: I am not threatening.

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John Arthur Clark: The minister has made a
statement which I am sure in the opinion of any fair-minded member of this House can only be considered extreme. I am not suggesting that a dollar a pound be placed on mutton coming from Australia. I am trying to get a considered opinion from the minister, if he has given the matter his consideration. If the duties are raised proportionately against other countries, if the general tariff is raised sufficiently and Australia is given the proportion of the preference called for in the treaty, surely that is not an objectionable increase. These adjustments will have to be made from time to time in the interest of our country, and surely we are not to be met on every occasion with the threat from the minister: "If you do that you are going to lose the great benefit of the pulp and paper and fishing industries in British Columbia." But the fact that we are deriving benefits for one industry is no reason why I should not plead for fair treatment for another, and that is all I am asking. I am asking whether the hon. minister's department have come to any conclusion as to the comparative effect on the sheep raising industry in this country, first, in leaving the duty as at present at half a cent a pound, and secondly, in increasing the general tariff and the Australian treaty rate proportionately, so that the preference is maintained.


Alfred Edgar MacLean: I desire to say a word in reply to my hon. friend from Frontenac. He states that our imports from the United States have increased tremendously or that they were very much in excess of our exports. If he will take the figures for last year as supplied by the agricultural statistics he will find that our imports last year were $1,375,780 and our exports $2,520,524 of chilled meats-meats fresh, chilled, or frozen-and that is the item under discussion. The trend of exports and imports has been favourable to Canada for the last few years. Our total exports in 1925 were around $5,000,000 and our exports were about the same in 1923, while our imports have dropped from over $5,000,000 in 1923 to $1,300,000 in 1925.


John Wesley Edwards: That is just fresh meats?


Alfred Edgar MacLean: Our total imports for consumption in 1923 were $5,473,975, and our total imports in 1925 were $1,375,785. That is all from one country, practically all between Canada and the United States.


John Wesley Edwards: My figures
cover meats as a whole.


Alfred Edgar MacLean: I am speaking
of fresh meats, as that is the item under discussion.


John Wesley Edwards: The hon.
member is right.


Mr. STEWART (Leeds):: What year is
my hon. friend referring to when he speaks about the very large quantity of meat and pork imported into Canada from the United States? Was it a war year?


James Alexander Robb: No, I was repeating some
figures quoted by the hon. member for Frontenac.


Hugh Alexander Stewart: I understood my hon. friend to give some figures of a very large quantity of meat imported into Canada in a particular year, and I was asking what year that was.


James Alexander Robb: I do not recall that.


Hugh Alexander Stewart: The minister
certainly stated that during a certain time we had a very large import of meat from the United States that was again exported.


James Alexander Robb: That was the year ending
March 31, 1926-over a million dollars worth of pork, and we exported a much larger quantity of bacon.


Hugh Alexander Stewart: That was last
year?


James Alexander Robb: Yes.	[DOT]


Hugh Alexander Stewart: Hon. members
on the other side and members to our left very often point out that the exports of certain agricultural products to the United States in a particular year exceed the imports from the United States of like products in the same year, and they seem to think that ought to settle the matter, that really it establishes a balance in favour of Canada. Well, superficially it does, but I think we must take into consideration the population of the two countries. The United States is a country of 140,000,000 and we are a country of 9,000,000 or 10,000,000. Now under these circumstances I think it is only fair, when we are analyzing this question, to put it on a per capita basis, and if that be so then we find the United States, with 110,000,000, in many cases is taking less from us than we are taking them with with our 9,000,000 or
10,000,000 people. I submit that feature should not be lost sight of in dealing with these figures.

Ways and Means-Customs Tariff


Mr. MILLAR:: Is that not also the
reason why the Canadian farmer cannot be protected, while the American farmer can be protected?


Hugh Alexander Stewart: I cannot agree
with that at all. I do not see why we cannot in Canada impose the same rate of duty in respect to farm produce that the United States imposes, and I cannot help thinking it would be to the advantage of the Canadian farmer if that were done. Many of the farmers' organizations in Canada have asked that that be done, and it has not been done. They ought to be the best judges as to whether or not it would be good for them. Surely our Saskatchewan friends do not claim that they know what is good for the farmer of Ontario better than the Ontario farmer himself knows, and he has been sending resolutions down to Ottawa asking for an increase in the duty on farm products, vegetables, fruit and that sort of thing.


Mr. SPENCER:: Would the hon. member
state what farmers' organizations he is referring to?


Hugh Alexander Stewart: I have not the
names of them under my hand, but if the hon. member will inquire of the Minister of Finance or the Minister of Agriculture he will get all the information he requires. As to this item which is under consideration, I submit two things have been made abundantly clear from the argument this afternoon: first, that without in any way disturbing the integrity or the effect of the Australian treaty, we are free to raise this duty as against meat products coming from the United States, and second, that it would appear to be in the interests of the Canadian farmer that that should be done. It is not equally clear that we might raise the duty as against Australia, and I do not think anybody now seriously advocates that, although I think it could be done without in any way violating the provisions or the understanding or the effect of the treaty. I think this item with respect to imports of 'fresh meat from the United States should be increased.


Donald Sutherland: I
should like to refer to a matter that was introduced into the debate. While this may not appear to be pertinent to the item and may come within the scope of your ruling, Mr. Chairman, I would like to point out that you cannot grow wool without also producing meat. The production of meat in this country is connected with the production of wool. The hon. member for Brandon referred to conditions in the United States and in Canada. We have no tariff on wool; it comes in absolutely free from all parts of the world. We import fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen and as high as nineteen million pounds of wool in a year and the great bulk of our woo! has to find a market abroad.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order.


Donald Sutherland: I
was just going to point out in connection with the objection raised by the hon. member for Brandon that these depressed farmers in tha United States with a tariff of thirty and some odd cents a pound on wool yet received
5,000,000 pounds of our wool last year.


William Duff: I acknowledged some
time ago that I should not have allowed such latitude in the discussion but I took full responsibility for it. I rule now that the hon. member must keep |to the item under consideration.


Donald Sutherland: The item is meat and the increase of half a cent a pound under the general tariff. I recall when the Australian treaty was before this House a 'year ago the item of meat was under discussion. I also remember that when parliament assembled the man who is apparently leading this government to-day, the hon. member for Brandon, took exception to the agreement which the minister had made with Australia in regard to this very matter, on the ground that he could not consent to an increase in the tariff because it would destroy the arguments they were advancing in favour of reducing the general tariff on manufactured goods. The minister made an agreement with the government of Australia, an agreement which was placed before the parliament of Australia and ratified by them, and in which they pointed out that it was the intention of the government to increase the general tariff on meats in this country. Nevertheless the government did not do so, because their dictator from Brandon could not allow that to interfere with his policy of demanding a reduction in the tariff on manufactured goods. On the 26th September, 1924, the Prime Minister of Australia, as reported in the Australian Hansard, made this statement:
The ministry has entered into an arrangement with the government of Canada for an announcement of the proposed agreement to be made in this House as near as possible to 2.30 p.m. to-day.
The agreement was made; the announcement was made in the Australian parliament, and Ithe minister had to change his policy under the dictation referred to. As a result the minister comes before this House to-day
3594	COMMONS
Ways and Means-Customs Tariff
and asks to have a paltry increase of one-half cent a pound made in our general tariff on meats.


James Alexander Robb: And my hon. friend blocks it.


Donald Sutherland: I
asked the minister at the outset what principle underlay this increase, but so far he has not given any reason other than to say that the object is to promote the importation of mutton and lamb from Australia. The statement the minister made |when the treaty was before the House was that it was to reduce the cost of the breakfast table by encouraging the importation of this article. There is no use trying to beat about the bush; the minister might just as well let the people know what he has in his mind. The tariff is to be hacked a little here and a little there. In the second agreement that was made, by some oversight one-half cent a pound was left out of the general tariff and the minister is trying to insert that in order to complete the second agreement. With regard to the threat-because I cannot consider it as anything else-that if we oppose the Australian treaty it may be cancelled-


William Duff: I have already ruled
that any discussion of that kind is out of order.


Donald Sutherland: I
think it would be one of the best acts of this government if they would give immediate notice to have the Australian treaty repealed on six months' notice.


William Duff: I have already ruled
that the Australian treaty cannot be discussed. Will the hon. member please obey my ruling?


Donald Sutherland: The Australian treaty is so involved in the tariff on meat that I do not see how one can keep away from it.


William Duff: That is my ruling.


Donald Sutherland: If
that is your ruling, Mr. Chairman, I say that your ruling is not a sound ruling and I appeal from it.


William Duff: Does the hon. member want to appeal from my ruling?


Donald Sutherland: That I cannot discuss the item.


William Duff: The hon. member may discuss the item as much as he likes. But I have allowed hon. members too much latitude, and it is only fair that we should get back to the item under consideration.


Donald Sutherland: The connection between the Australian treaty and meat?


William Duff: The item under consideration is the duty on meat.


John Wesley Edwards: The minister introduced the matter of the Australian treaty himself.


William Duff: I ruled the minister
out of order, and the hon. member for Brandon and two or three other hon. members out of order also.


Donald Sutherland: I
trust you will continue that latitude until the end and then rule the discussion out of order. Surely you will not allow the minister and these others to have this privilege and not allow me the same.


William Duff: I have allowed too
much latitude already.


Donald Sutherland: You have been so fair and good-natured about the matter that I certainly would not like to depart from any ruling that you might make. I should be glad if the minister could give the committee some reason why the increase has been made, the general principle on which it is decided that the increase should be one-half cent a pound and not two and one-half cents. I made a motion which was ruled out of order by the Chair because, according to the interpretation of the Chairman, this is a tax and a motion cannot be moved by a private member. I tried to persuade the minister to take my view of the matter and I suggested that he should make a move in this direction. But apparently he still has a recollection of the pressure that was brought to bear by the hon. member for Brandon when on a former occasion the minister had to change his views on a question of an item in the tariff. I am satisfied that he is living more in dread of that than even the action of a certain sister Dominion with regard to a trade arrangement which has been entered into. We ought to ' have a little more time to allow the minister to consider this matter so that he may come before the committee at eight o'clock and give us a frank explanation of what influenced him in making the change. This, I am sure, would be a move in the interests of the people as a whole and it would do more to promote the welfare, not only of agriculture but of the country generally, than old age pensions or rural credits or anything of that kind. Yet the minister sits here and treats the matter lightly. I do not think the people

Ways and Means-Customs Tariff
will not so regard it-certainly they would not if they were only aware of the minister's attitude-when they come to pass upon it at the next opportunity. I respectfully urge the minister to consider this suggestion before disposing of the matter. Let us have a more candid explanation as to the basis upon which this change of one-half cent per pound is made. Is that the limit which the hon. member for Brandon (Mr. Forke) can stand? Can he not concede one cent per pound? Is he so wedded to half a cent?


Robert Forke: Mr. Chairman, is the hon.
member in order in invoking my name so often?


William Duff: As it is rather a compliment than anything else I will not rule the hon. gentleman out of order.


John Wesley Edwards: Can the
minister give us the cost of transportation of meat from Australia to Vancouver, say? That is a pertinent question. We have been discussing biutton, lamb and pork all afternoon, *but beef is also on the bill of fare, and I would call the minister's attention to the bonus paid by the Australian government at $2.40 on each carcass of beef exported. I understand that the government has taken into consideration the six cent Pattersen bonus on butter but whether the $2.40 bonus paid by the Australian government on beef has been considered in fixing the tariff, I do not know. It should be taken into consideration. Can the minister give me the figures as to the cost of transportation when the committee meets again at eight o'clock?


James Alexander Robb: I will not give my hon. friend the figures, nor will I attempt to find them, because the Australian treaty is not under consideration at the moment. The question the committee is discussing is the increase of half a cent per pound under this item and which most hon. gentlemen have opposed all afternoon.
At six o'clock the committee took recess.
After Recess
The committee resumed at eight o'clock.


John Wesley Edwards: When the committee rose at six o'clock, Mr. Chairman, I had put a question to the Minister of Finance which I think was perfectly fair and had a very direct bearing upon the item we were discussing. I asked the minister if he could inform me, not then but when the committee resumed, as to the freight charges incidental to bringing meat from Australia to
Canada. If I understood him correctly he said he could not so inform me, and had no intention of endeavouring to get the information. It is my privilege, of course, to ask a question which I conceive to have a very direct bearing upon the item under discussion ,and it is the minister's privilege to answer or not, as he sees fit.
I say that the question I asked had a very direct bearing for this reason. We are discussing item 7, and the minister himself said that the rate of three and one-half cents per pound was fixed because of the agreement with Australia. Australia having a rate of one-half cent per pound and the agreement requiring that Australia be given a preference of three cents, the minister fixes the rate at three and one-half cents per pound. In bringing meat into Canada from any other country there are certain factors entering into that transaction; there is the duty, the cost of transportation, and still another matter which has been recognized by this government. In some countries, one at least, the government or certain societies undertake to encourage the transportation or exportation of certain goods by giving a bonus. For example-and this I submit to be a fair illustration-the duty on butter coming from a certain country was fixed at one cent per pound. In the course of time it developed that by an arrangement in that country called the Pattersen scheme a bonus of six cents was given on every pound of butter exported. We have been told repeatedly that the government did consider that as a factor which influenced the agreement entered into, and I understand they are applying a dumping clause of six cents per pound because of the action of this society.
Now I make the application to meats. The government of Australia gives a bonus, I am told, of $2.40 on every carcass of beef exported from that country. Although the amounts are different that is on all fours with the Pattersen scheme of bonusing butter, and if the government recognize one scheme as militating against Canada and unfair to the dairymen, then I ask why the same thing should not be taken into consideration in regard to meats. The $2.40 paid by the Australian government on every carcass of beef exported will, I presume, work out in the neighbourhood of one-half cent bonus per pound, so as a matter of fact, because of the bonus on the export of beef from Australia, there is really no protection at all. that bonus offsetting the duty of one-half cent per pound and leaving as our only protection the cost of transportation. Having in view the fact that this bonus is given, would it not be fair for the minister to
3596	COMMONS
Ways and Means-Customs Tariff
increase this figure to four cents or five cents per pound on meats imported from other countries than Australia? If the same rule is applied to beef as is applied to butter, they will raise the duty and give us more protection against importations from, say, the United States or any other countries exporting to Canada.
The minister has said that we should not discuss the Australian treaty in connection with this item, and you, Mr. Chairman, have ruled to that effect. I have no desire to infringe upon that ruling,' further than to point out that the minister himself has said that this very item we are now discussing was fixed by the Australian treaty. By that admission he has introduced the Australian agreement into the argument and under these circumstances, so far as it applies to the importation of meat, I submit that it is perfectly fair to discuss this agreement. If the minister could come here and say that the three and one-half cent tariff rate has nothing whatever to do with the Australian agreement I admit that we should leave it out of the discussion, but that is not the case. That being so we have a right to examine that Australian agreement and see to what extent we are being protected. If we can apply the rule in regard to butter where the Pattersen agreement comes in with a bonus of six cents per pound, how can you consistently disregard the fact that the Australian government gives a bonus amounting to about one-half cent per pound on meats?
I assume that to be the figure; I thought probably the minister would have obtained these facts, but he has not done so. I say that in view of that bonus on meats this matter is exactly in line with the bonus on butter, and inasmuch as the government have dealt with the one scheme by applying the dumping clause on butter, I ask why they should not take into consideration the bonus given on meat, and raise the duty accordingly. Then, if you wish to be logical, you should apply the dumping clause of $2.40 to offset the bonus, just for the same reason that you apply the dumping clause of six cents a pound to offset the bonus on butter.
I submit that that is a very good reason indeed why the minister could justify the government in raising the general tariff above the three and one-half cents a pound which is outlined in this part of the schedule.


Alfred Edgar MacLean: Would not the
dumping clause apply in this case the same as it does on other products that are bonused?


John Wesley Edwards: Mr. Chairman, it is not up to me to say whether this dumping clause will apply or not. Let me 
put the hon. member's question to the minister:	Will the dumping clause apply in this
case? If so, I repeat, there is good ground for raising the general tariff higher than it is now.


Donald Sutherland: 
[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-20a. Butter produced from cocoa bean, per pound: British preferential tariff, free; intermediate tariff, 2 cents; general tariff, 2 cents.
James Alexander Robb: This is to meet the requirements of the West Indian agreement.


Henry Lumley Drayton: My hon. friend has some items here which are purely in ease of the West Indian agreement. Take, for example, some of these cocoa items, where we have a direct increase in the cost to our manufacturers, which they have objected to very much. If my hon. friend cannot do anything else, cannot he insert what is quite a usual provision-that the increases which are necessary for the purpose of putting into effect the West Indian agreement will not become operative until that treaty is ratified? That would be a good deal of assistance to our cocoa manufacturers and confectioners, and it does no one any harm under the agreement until that agreement is ratified.


James Alexander Robb: I do not think it will improve the condition of the cocoa men to act upon my hon. friend's suggestion. The preferential rate will not be in force until the treaty is proclaimed. I think we might put this item through. I fancy that as we go along it will be found that the cocoa people will not be so very badly off.


Henry Lumley Drayton: My hon. friend does not get my point. It is quite true that the treaty will not go into effect until it is proclaimed, but we are making customs changes just for the purpose of giving effect to the treaty. Now, as the treaty does not go into effect until it is proclamed why should these customs changes go into effect until they also are proclaimed? We have done the same'thing before. We did it in connection with the cellulose case. There is no difficulty in giving effect to my suggestion.


James Alexander Robb: I think we had better continue with the item. I recall that the previous West India agreement came into force just as the present one will.


Henry Lumley Drayton: My hon. friend is not getting my point. It is quite true the agreement does not come into effect until it is proclaimed. But for the purpose of giving effect to the agreement my hon. friend is. making certain changes in the customs tariff. It is only being done for "that purpose; it is not being done I assume-and I do not think I am wrong in the assumption-for the direct purpose of hurting Canadian trade, for the purpose of hurting the confectionery business. It is done for the purpose of implementing the contract-which will be a contract after it is ratified-with the West Indies. Now all I am suggesting is that my hon. friend should provide-it can be done-that the increases that are being made in our duties should not be made effective until the treaty comes into operation.

Ways and Means-Customs Tariff


James Alexander Robb: The item we are considering
does not provide for an increase in duty, it is a decrease.


Henry Lumley Drayton: I am speaking in a general sense and with the idea of having the point settled now.


James Alexander Robb: I think we might proceed.


John Arthur Clark: The item refers to butter
produced from the cocoa bean. Is that oleomargarine?


James Alexander Robb: No, cocoa butter.


John Arthur Clark: I know, but what is the
nature of it?


James Alexander Robb: It is a butter used by confectioners.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-22. Preparations of cocoa or chocolate in powder form: British preferential tariff, 221 per cent; intermediate tariff, 271 per cent; general tariff, 35 per cent. Or per pound, British preferential tariff, 2 cents; intermediate tariff, 2J cents; general tariff, 3 rents- whichever rate returns the higher duty.
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-23. Preparations of cocoa or chocolate, n.o.p., and confectionery, coated with or containing chocolate, the weight of the wrappings and cartons to be included in the weight for duty, per pound: British preferential tariff, 2J cents; intermediate tariff, 2i cents; general tariff, 2J cents. And, British preferential tariff, 20 per cent; intermediate tariff, 271 per cent; general tariff, 35 per cent.
Henry Lumley Drayton: This is a case particularly in point, is it not?


James Alexander Robb: Yes. This is to provide for the changes in regard to cocoa beans and is intended to meet the wishes of the manufacturers of confectionery. It puts them in a little better position.


Henry Lumley Drayton: Will my hon. friend kindly explain that? I do not see how that is done.


James Alexander Robb: It gives the manufacturers an additional cent a pound.


Henry Lumley Drayton: This is not the bean itself; it is a manufactured article.


James Alexander Robb: This is the preparation.


Donald Sutherland: Surely we might have some reasonable information from the minister with regard to this item. We have allowed the item dealing with butter produced from the cocoa bean to pass with a reduction of li cents. In this case there is an increase of 1J cents per pound and we have no explanation as to the quantity of the commodity used in this country or the purpose for which it is used.

Mr. R'OBB:	This is to put the manufacturers in a little better position. The imports for consumption during the fiscal year ending 31st March, 1925, were: From the United Kingdom, $93,000 odd; from the United States, $28,000; and from all other countries $41,000; total $163,000. It gives an additional protection to the manufacturer.


Henry Lumley Drayton: Is not this the minister's idea? Inasmuch as for the purpose of complying with the agreement, and in Ipa-rticular meeting the case of the Trinidad cocoa bean grower, a substantial increase is being made in the raw material, there is here an increase in the manufactured article to keep confectionery, if possible, on the same basis?


James Alexander Robb: That is the point exactly. In that connection-and this meets the views of hon. gentlemen who say that we should have a preference for preference in some places-I may isay that the people of the West India islands pointed out to us that we were admitting to Canada cocoa beans from the west coast of Africa where we -had no preference. They said: We are giving you a preference for your Canadian dairy products, and other products, therefore why should you allow cocoa to come in from British countries, even from the west coast of Africa, where you have no preference, and where we are unable to obtain a preference because of an agreement with other countries-I think one is France-that does not expire for two years?


Henry Lumley Drayton: I thought it
was six months.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-28. Coffee, green, imported direct from the country of growth and production, and green coffee purchased in bond in the United Kingdom, per pound; British preferential tariff, free; intermediate tariff, 3 cents; general tariff, 3 cents.
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-30. Ginger and spices, unground, n.o.ip.: British preferential tariff, free; intermediate tariff, 12J per cent; general tariff, 121 per cent.
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-32. Nutmegs and mace, whole or unground : British preferential tariff, free; intermeaiate tariff, 171 per cent; general tariff, 20 per cent.
Donald Sutherland: Surely we shall have some explanation from the minister in regard to the reduction of the tariff on nutmegs.


James Alexander Robb: My hon. friend will observe
we are placing this on the free list under the preferential tariff. That is a reduction of 12}

Ways and Means-Customs Tariff
per cernt under the West India agreement. The importations were: from the British West Indies, $58,000; Straits settlement, $8,000; United Kingdom, $3,000; all other countries $19,000. Total importations $88,000.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-39b. Arrowroot per pound: R.'it'sh preferential tariff, free; intermediate tariff, 11 cents; general tariff, 11 cents.
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-42a. Table salt made by an admixture of other ingredients, when containing not less than ninety per cent of pure salt. British preferential tariff, 5 per cent; intermediate tariff, 10 per cent; general tariff, 15 per cent.
James Alexander Robb: This is done for administrative purposes to meet the views of the Customs department Complaint was made as to table salt coming in in packages, and the Customs board were compelled to make a ruling. In certain cases the salt contained a small quantity of medicinal ingredient; in other cases a small quantity of magnesia. The admixture was for the purpose of allowing the salt to run freely. Complaint was made that the salt should be given a different classification and it was increased to 25 per cent under the general tariff. This is to put it on the 'basis of 15 per cent.	.


Henry Lumley Drayton: And this is a
reduction.


James Alexander Robb: It is to clarify the matter. It is not a reduction from the general tariff.


Mr. MORAND:: Is there not really a reduction from the amount that was actually paid?


James Alexander Robb: The salt coming in before was classified as a medicine and was admitted at 25 per cent, which made it expensive for the householders of the country.


Raymond Ducharme Morand: The difference between
the 25 per cent and the present duty has been figured out in the case of people who use the greatest amount of salt, to be a saving of two or three cents a year. In my city they have just developed an iodized salt which they have gone to considerable trouble to advertise throughout Canada, and no sooner have they established a market for it than the tariff is reduced. But that is not all. This salt can come in in a container at 5 per cent preferential or under the general tariff at 15 per cent, and there is no duty on the container, but if the firm manufactures the salt in Canada, and imports containers or packages in which to put it up, they have to pay a high duty on it, which removes any protection they might have. The Windsor
Salt Company has just put out an iodized salt, and they were the first to do so in Canada, I believe. They spent a good deal of money to advertise it, and not only does this remove all the protection, but it gives the American manufacturers an unfair advantage because they send in their containers free of duty, while the Canadian manufacturers have to pay for theirs.


James Alexander Robb: The explanation is quite clear. This company and some others had a monopoly of the business, there was no fair competition, and the householder was paying that much more for it.


Raymond Ducharme Morand: How much more?


James Alexander Robb: If my hon. friend desires to pursue this question further, I have here the earnings of certain salt companies, and I would be glad to give him this information.


Raymond Ducharme Morand: Surely the minister does not base the change in tariff on the earnings of a company, whose manufacture, comprises only a small proportion of table salt.. Is that the only reason for the reduction- the high earnings?


James Alexander Robb: No. My hon. friend misses the point that I am here representing the consumer as well as the manufacturer of salt. I think in the interests of the consumer this is a fair protection and that they will in no way be injured by it.


Henry Lumley Drayton: The minister has not addressed himself to this one point; the hon. member has pointed out that in his view-and the minister can tell me if this is wrong-the proposed change can only make a difference of a very few cents in the course of a whole year. Has the minister any information on that point? Who is asking for the change? What is the name of the manufacturer who asked for the change, and what is he desiring to sell?


James Alexander Robb: My hon. friend has missed the point. The person who asked to have this placed in a higher classification than before was the manufacturer. The customs people think that in the interests of the general public it is better to make this clear, so that this product will be classified properly as set out here rather than as a medicinal product.


Peter McGibbon: Will the minister tell us what proportion of iodine and other medicinal properties are in it?
3600	^	COMMONS
Ways and Means-Customs Tariff


James Alexander Robb: I have not that information, but the item says:	*
When containing not less that 90 per cent of pure salt.
There could not be any more than 10 per cent of any other ingredient.
Mr. Mc.GIBBON: Might I point out that iodine is one of the ingredients of ordinary salt. Much would depend on the relative qualities of the Canadian and American products.


James Alexander Robb: I am told there is not much iodine in it.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-72b, Tree seeds for reforestation purposes only: British preferential tariff, free; intermediate tariff, free; general tariff, free.
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-77a. Cocoa beans, not roasted crushed or ground, per one hundred pounds: British preferential tariff, free; intermediate tariff, $1.50; general tariff, $2.
' Sir HENRY DRAYTON: Is that also the
treaty?
James Alexander Robb: Yes, this is the agreement. There is an increase there of $1.50 to $2 in the general tariff. The others are made the same, free.


Donald Sutherland: What is the rate under the old British preferential tariff?


James Alexander Robb: It is the same under the old British preferential. We are increasing the general tariff.


Hugh Alexander Stewart: Could you inform the committee where our imports of this particular commodity come from?


James Alexander Robb: The records show the following imports, leaving out the hundreds:
United States	 {317,000
British West Indies	 255.000
United Kingdom	 294,000
British West Africa	 53,000
Ceylon	 53,000
A1J other foreign countries	 10,000


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-90, Fruits, viz.: plantains, pineapples, pomegranates, guavas, mangoes, wild blueberries, wild strawberries and wild raspberries: British preferential tariff, free; intermediate tariff, free; general tariff, free.
James Alexander Robb: This is just a reclassification. Bananas are left out of this item.


Ernest Frederick Armstrong: A large
number of the celery growers in my district plant several hundred acres each year in celery, and I am looking for an item on which I could present the claims of those interested in that industry. These celery growers produce several hundred car loads of celery each year. They find their market entirely undermined by the United States celery which is coming in, and a petition in the matter is being sent to the Minister of Finance. When their celery comes on the market, that market is flooded with United States celery, and they are compelled to send their product to cold storage in Toronto and elsewhere. Some of them interviewed me when I was home last Sunday. They told me a quantity of this celery was still in cold storage in Toronto and that they were paying insurance and storage charges on it, while dozens of car loads were coming in from the United States. The United States placed an embargo against our celery going into that country; they do not allow one stem of celery to go there from Canada at any time of the year. The celery growers in my district simply ask that, say for a month or two after their celery is ready for market, the government should impose an embargo against United States celery coming into Canada, similar to the embargo which has been placed against the Canadian product going into the United States, thus enabling them to get rid of their product at a reasonable price. That is practically the whole point. The petition is on its way, and I thought if the minister would allow me to present this matter to him he might consider it. The problem is a very serious one for the people who are compelled to send dozens and dozens of carloads of celery into cold storage, hold it there during the winter season and pay insurance, storage and all the other charges in connection with it while it is stored there. Now they find themselves, as they have during the last few years, with large quantities of celery on hand at a time of the year when celery from the United States is coming in and underselling their market while during the whole year they are not allowed to send one stem of celery into the United States market because of the embargo against it.
(Mr. ROBB: I will take a note of the observations of my hon. friend. It is news to me that there is an embargo. I observe that the United States have a tariff of 25 per cent against celery while our tariff is 30 per cent.

Ways and Means-Customs Tariff


Ernest Frederick Armstrong: They have an embargo now.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-90b. Bananas:	British preferential
tariff, free; intermediate tariff, free; general tariff, free.
The Governor in Council may by order in council direct that there be substituted for tariff item 90b in schedule A of the Customs tariff, 1907, the enumerations of goods and the rates of duties of customs, if any, set opposite items 90c and 90d in schedule A the following:
90c. Bananas, when imported from the place of growth by ship, direct to a Canadian port, per stem or bunch: British preferential tariff, free; intermediate tariff, 50 cents; _general tariff, 50 cents.
90d. Bananas, n.o.p., per stem or bunch: British preferential tariff, fifty cents; intermediate tariff, fifty cents; general tariff, fifty cents.
From and after the publication of such order in council in the Canada Gazette, tariff item 90b as it appears in said schedule at the time of the passing of the act founded on this resolution shall be repealed and the provisions of tariff items 90c and 90d shall be substituted therefor.
Charles Hazlitt Cahan: As regards items 90b, 90c and 90d, do not these reductions under the British, preferential tariff conform to the rates which are enumerated in the proposed West Indies treaty?


James Alexander Robb: They do.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: The suggestion then is that the Governor in Council may by order in council direct the substitution of the tariffs mentioned in the resolution. Do the government intend to bring this in force only in case of the ratification of the West Indies treaty, or do they intend to reduce the rate in any case?


James Alexander Robb: We intend to bring it into force. I am not sure what my hon. friend has in mind, whether he has in mind a gentleman that I met during this week or last. Hon. gentlemen will be interested to know, and I think it is fair to say to them now, that I was approached within the last few weeks to know when this treaty would be proclaimed and brought into force. It was intimated to me that there was now under consideration by a very large shipping company the question of putting on steamers to carry bananas to Canada if this treaty went into force, the only condition imposed being that they should not be subject to any subsidy.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: I am not suggesting that. I am asking a plain question: If it is the intention of the government to make these reductions only in case of the ratification of the West Indies treaty, why should we not say so in express terms? I understand that the only consideration for making the reduction is
that under the West Indies treaty we may give considerations for certain reciprocal considerations made in favour of Canada.


James Alexander Robb: This is inserted in the resolution so that the government may be in a position, if they see fit, not to bring it into force if the Canadian people* are going to be unduly penalized. I think it is well to leave in the hands of the government the question of when they should bring it into force.


Donald Sutherland: Has the hon. member for Brandon agreed to the proposition-the trade treaty with the West Indies?


James Alexander Robb: If my hon. friend will refer to Hansard of Tuesday he will find that the hon. member for Brandon approved the policy of the government.


Mr. RYERSON:: My understanding of this clause was that the imposition of this duty was not to go into effect until such time as the service which is provided for under the West Indies treaty was actually operating. I would like to point out to western members particularly the hardships that this treaty will impose upon the west. It will add anywhere from four to five cents a dozen to the retail price of bananas. I have already pointed out to the House that it will be an utter impossibility to distribute bananas from Canadian ports to points in the west and a large portion of Ontario If that is a fact, this duty which we are imposing will be a great hardship upon the people in those districts.


John Arthur Clark: What adjustment has been made of the case put before the minister by the Fruit and Produce Credit Association of British Columbia?


James Alexander Robb: I am not sure that I have in mind what that was. Will my hon. friend give me the details?


John Arthur Clark: The hon. member for Cariboo can explain the matter better than I can.


Mr. FRASER:: When this matter was being discussed under the West Indies treaty I understood from the Minister of Finance that he intended to make some arrangement in regard to the shipment of bananas from New Orleans to the western part of Canada. Has any such arrangement been made?


James Alexander Robb: I have nothing in mind as to bananas from New Orleans, but I have in mind a proposition that has been made to us by the people of the Fiji islands, where they grow a good banana as my hon. friend

Ways and Means-Customs Tariff
knows. They have represented to us that if they come in under these conditions they can very well supply the western market. They were cut out of the excellent market they enjoyed in Australia when the Australians imposed quite a heavy duty and they arefnow seeking a market for their prodiuct.


John Anderson Fraser: 
James Alexander Robb: I know as well as my hon. friend does that there is considerable opposition on the part of the distributors in New Orleans, who stand to lose business. However, we have looked carefully into the matter and are satisfied that the Canadian public will not pay more for bananas, while the Canadian railways will benefit by the haul. If things turn out as we anticipate, Fiji island growers will come into the market and Vancouver, instead of getting the bananas from New Orleans, will get them direct by steamer. Vancouver in that case will serve as the point of distribution to markets as far east as Winnipeg at least.


John Arthur Clark: There is no duty that applies to Fiji.


James Alexander Robb: We have the power to give them the same concession. They can come under the British preference.


John Arthur Clark: How do we know at this moment that there is any steamship service that will cover the trade between Fiji and the Dominion? I would ask the minister this question, by the way. If there are bananas in the Fiji island why is it that we have not been importing this fruit from them in the past? Surely steamship rates on bananas from Fiji would be lower than freight rates from New Orleans. If there were anything in the minister's contention we should now be getting our bananas from the Fiji island duty free, and a considerable trade would have developed long ago. I do not think the minister has given the matter adequate consideration. It was called to his attention on April 20, I believe, and obviously it has not been seriously considered. Now, if British Columbia is to get its bananas from the West Indies the fruit must be hauled by the Canadian railways, and while of course that is a point worth considering, it must be remembered that the rates will be prohibitive; we shall have to

Ways and Means-Customs Tariff
pay $3.79| per hundred pounds, which is considerably higher than the rate we are now paying. In this connection I would point out that our railways are not fitted
9	p.m. for the banana trade. In the extreme temperatures which we experience in winter the weather would be too cold while in midsummer it would be too hot, and there is no provision for proper storage in our cars. But the important point is that we shall have to pay $3.79! for the bananas hauled over the Canadian railways as compared with $1.87J from New Orleans.
I am anxious to support any measure that will make for improved trade within the empire, but I must insist, first of all, that the minister be fair to our own people. That is the principle by which we should always be governed in matters of this kind, and under this arrangement the people of British Columbia will be most unfairly dealt with. I may ask the hon, member for Brandon a question while he is in his seat, although I must observe that he is quite unwilling to let me put a question to him when he is speaking. The hon. member is ready enough to vote for a tariff in the interests of the farmers of another British dominion, but he will not support one designed to protect the farmers of his own country. Does he think that is right? And I would put the same question to my hon. friends from Saskatchewan. Do they realize that by adopting this provision they are now affording protection to the farmers of the West Indies? Apparently they are willing to give such protection to farmers down there, but when it comes to protecting a bona fide and necessary Canadian industry such as the raising of sheep and the production of wool-oh, nol No protection for the Canadian farmer I Perhaps I might remind those hon. gentlemen that for the most part the West Indian labour engaged in this industry is coloured. It is labour of that sort which my hon. friends from Saskatchewan and the hon. member for Brandon are now proposing to protect to the detriment of the Canadian consumer-the consumer about whom the Minister of Finance has so much to say. Now, I want the minister to protect the consumer of British Columbia in this matter; at least, let him give the consumer fair consideration. So far as I can see, the minister has failed to do so. If anyone suggests that the Minister of Finance is obdurate, then perhaps the hon. member for Brandon may be induced to come to the assistance of the public in this regard.


James Shaver Woodsworth: What kind of labour is there in New Orleans?


John Arthur Clark: I am not concerned with that; I am concerned first and foremost with the Canadians. I am pointing out that while my hon. friends from the west refuse to protect Canadian producers, they are willing enough to give protection to producers in other parts of the world.


James Shaver Woodsworth: I did not catch the point of the hon. gentleman's reference to coloured labour.


John Arthur Clark: I do not know why my hon. friend should have missed the point; it was perfectly clear.


Mr. CHAPLIN (Lincoln):: Bananas are
not grown in New Orleans.


John Arthur Clark: The labour employed in the production of bananas is coloured labour, and I am pointing out to my hon. friend from Winnipeg (Mr. Woodsworth) that he is now proposing to vote, as he has already voted, in support of measures to encourage and protect that labour, while he refuses to assist the producers of his own country. That is the situation.


Mr. LADNER:: I have received several
protests in connection with this matter. Most of us, I think, are agreed that we want goods to come into Canada through Canadian ports, and as a matter of fact the government should have taken some step in that direction long ago. But the principle here involved is discrimination in favour of one part of the country as against another. As a matter of policy it is quite unfair that the supply of bananas coming to British Columbia should be taxed to the extent of fifty cents while that landed in eastern Canada escapes such taxation.


Charles A. Stewart: Where do you get your bananas now in British Columbia?


Leon Johnson Ladner: They come from the
southern states, principally from New Orleans.


Charles A. Stewart: No, from
the West Indies.


John Anderson Fraser: From the West Indies, via New Orleans.


Charles A. Stewart: Exactly.


Leon Johnson Ladner: My argument from the
Canadian point of view is this. The government is now passing legislation to place a tariff on bananas, and in so doing they are creating a situation which discriminates against the people of the west, leaving free the people of the east. That is one place, perhaps not a very important one, where difficulties are liable to arise.

Ways and Means-Customs Tariff


Charles A. Stewart: How does
that discrimination against the west figure out, as a matter of information?


Leon Johnson Ladner: Because in the actual
working out of the business under this proposed legislation, bananas coming from the West Indies to Halifax and Quebec are in the free class. But in the practical working of the business on the west coast they cannot come by that route; it is not practicable. The trade and facilities for handling, the storage, and the practices of the trade, all combine to make it necessary to secure these goods from California or perhaps from New Orleans.


Charles A. Stewart: Is there no cold storage shipping via the Panama canal to Vancouver?


Robert Edwy Ryerson: No, not at present.


Leon Johnson Ladner: You cannot ship bananas in that way. If members of the government and particularly the Minister of Finance would scrutinize this letter, which is from a responsible source and is quite comprehensive, they would not be disposed ito pass legislation of this kind, in my judgment. They are simply imposing upon the people of Canada a discriminatory piece of legislation which puts a tax on the west as against the east. That is a bad policy, in my opinion.


James Alexander Robb: I will admit that if the only
source of supply was the West Indies there might be something in what my hon. friend has said, but I repeat that I anticipate that a large quantity of bananas will come from the Fiji Islands.


Leon Johnson Ladner: They will have to pay a duty.


James Alexander Robb: No, they will come in free.


Leon Johnson Ladner: What steamship service
is there?


James Alexander Robb: I was just coming to that.
I was rather surprised that the gentleman living in Vancouver and so greatly interested in the trade of Vancouver; who has been in this House for three years and has heard us vote subsidies, is not aware that Canada pays $100,000 a year for a subsidized sendee to New Zealand and Australia calling at the Fiji Islands, and that under the contract the company is compelled to provide a certain amount of cold storage.


Leon Johnson Ladner: But bananas are not
carried in cold storage.


James Alexander Robb: 
Leon Johnson Ladner: On the statement of the
minister there is no reason why we should not be quite happy, but supposing the situation does not work out in that way. Will the minister assure the west now that if, when the legislation is in operation, there is a discrimination, and the supply of bananas for the people of the west is taxed, he wild then review the situation so as to correct any inequality with respect to the tax on bananas as between the east and the west?


James Alexander Robb: I will assure my hon. friend
now that we will admit bananas from the Fiji Islands free if this arrangement goes through.


John Arthur Clark: The minister, in a tone of
more or less derision, suggests that there is a steamship service with the Fiji Islands and that I should know all about it. I know this much about that steamship service, that there is no service to-day which will supply the market for bananas in British Columbia. I can state without hesitation that the steamship

Ways and Means-Customs Tariff
service is not sufficiently frequent. For a perishable fruit such as bananas, according to the trade in British Columbia, you must have a frequent service.


James Alexander Robb: How frequent?


John Arthur Clark: I have forgotten exactly,
but they now get a car a week, and I presume that the reason they bring them in in small carload lots is to save the very heavy storage charges at that end. I am quite sure the minister knows that if the steamship service with the Fiji Islands is a monthly service, it is no more.


James Alexander Robb: I think it is every three
weeks; it might be monthly.


John Arthur Clark: The service is not sufficiently frequent, and consequently it has been proven in practice that although bananas have been on the free list this service has not actually brought bananas into Vancouver. So if the subsidy of $100,000 is supposed to bring bananas to British Columbia it is very badly spent. However, I feel certain that even if the minister puts bananas from the Fiji Islands on the free list it will not provide a solution at all, because the people of British Columbia must continue to get their bananas through New Orleans and pay a penalty which other parts of Canada are not called upon to pay; we are paying a penalty for the benefit of West Indian labour. The only other alternative I see will be to pay nearly S2 per hundred more in freight rates to haul our bananas by rail from Halifax. These are the alternatives we are faced with, and I very strongly suggest that so far as British Columbia is concerned, and not only British Columbia but the whole west, the result will be an unfair discrimination against us.


Mr. MacLAREN:: I think it is well to
remember that under the West India treaty it is proposed that bananas will be brought into Canada not only through St. John and Halifax but through Montreal as well.


James Alexander Robb: Any Canadian port direct.


Murray MacLaren: That is true, but I think the contract would call for St. John, Halifax and Montreal. During the summer season, which is the principal season for the importation of bananas, large quantities are imported through Montreal. The minister may be able to tell us what quantity of bananas now come from the Fiji islands. It will hardly do to say that this fruit is not imported from those islands at the present time, because two
years ago I personally saw bananas loaded on to a boat for Vancouver. Undoubtedly there is a certain trade in bananas even to-day from Fiji to Vancouver. Has the minister any information with regard to the volume of this trade?


James Alexander Robb: None.


John Anderson Fraser: Mr. Chairman, I would
point out to the minister that I have a letter under my hand which says that at the present time the city of Vancouver is consuming seven or eight cars of bananas per week, that is one car per day. We are told that the service between the Fiji islands and Canada calls for a boat every three weeks. It would require twenty-one carloads of bananas to supply the trade of Vancouver during this period. Can the minister tell me if there is any such accommodation on the boats plying on this route?


James Alexander Robb: I have not the information offhand as to the accommodation. The boats are a considerable size, one is 15,000 tons, another 12,000 and the third is 7,000. I would suggest that my hon. friend from Cariboo sit in with my hon. friend from Vancouver-Bur-rard and check up the statistics. He has just told us that Vancouver uses one car a week; my hon. friend says seven.


John Arthur Clark: Excuse me: one car a week in the winter and seven cars in the summer.


John Anderson Fraser: One car a week in the winter time and one car a day in the summer time. The minister assures us that the west coast is to get as good and as cheap a service from the Fiji islands as is being enjoyed at the present time. Supposing the supply of bananas is not available either from lack of space, crop failure or something of the kind, how are you going to make up the difference of $1.92 between the rate of $3.79J from Halifax and the rate of $1.87J from New Orleans?	.


James Alexander Robb: I should not like to be drawn into a commitment for the supply of bananas to any part of Canada, but I may tell my hon. friend that British Columbia has the same concessions for its products going to the West Indies as has any other part of Canada. I imagine they would tell me that British Columbia produces more fish than any other province. Well, there is considerable advantage under this agreement for the fish trade of Canada.

3606	COMMONS
Ways and Means-Customs Tariff


Robert Edwy Ryerson: I do not think hon. members from British Columbia or the prairies need concern themselves much about any discrimination. In my opinion the whole scheme is impracticable. Notwithstanding this arrangement, I believe that 90 per cent of our bananas will still come from the United States, and in that case this is merely a tariff for revenue. I have letters from dealers in many parts of Ontario and also from Manitoba and the west in -which they express the opinion that it is utterly impossible for them to consider bringing in bananas through Canadian ports. The entire distribution of bananas i3 scientifically arranged by the three large companies engaged in the business. They are distributed from New Orleans, Baltimore, New York, Philadelphia and Boston, and every centre is reached within eight days. Let me give a few figures of comparative distances. The estimated distance direct from Kingston, Jamaica, to Halifax, is 1,834 nautical miles. The 14 knot passenger service which is provided for in the West India treaty would cover this distance in 138 hours; from Halifax to central Ontario points you have to allow another 120 hours; extra time for stops at the Bahamas and Bermuda would consume a further 24 hours-in all 282 hours, or 111 days. If the bananas are distributed from Montreal we would have to add one day to this time, for the simpile reason that the water trip from Halifax to Montreal would be just that much longer than the rail haul. The distance from Kingston, Jamaica, by the freight sendee, which is every other week, would take one day longer. The distance from Kingston, Jamaica, to Baltimore, New York and Philadelphia is given as 1,440 nautical miles, that would mean 103 hours, and the rail journey to central Ontario points would take 48 hours, making in all 151 hours. In other words, 6 days and 7 hours against a possible 121 to 13 days via Canadian ports. New Orleans and Mobile receive their supplies altogether from Central America, and in no case is the time over eight days from the point of shipment in Central America to our markets. This alone makes a difference of anywhere from three to five days. In addition, the dealers have the option of buying their bananas from every one of the ports mentioned every day of the week; they do not have to wait for their supplies. Take a firm handling three cars of bananas a week which many of our Ontario and Quebec firms do; they would have to buy them all at one time. Does the minister know that bananas cannot be held for an indefinite time 
for the simple reason that they cannot be kept in cold storage or in a temperature below 50 degrees for any length of time without becoming useless? On the other hand, in hot weather bananas can be held for only a very few days or they will become over-ripe.
For that reason we have the trade throughout the whole Dominion buying their supplies from ports not more than three, four or five days distant from the source of supply. Any day of the week they can get their bananas delivered, for instance, on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. I think the House will see how impracticable the scheme will be in view of the present distribution.
There is another thing I should like to point out to the minister. Why are the large importing companies who are looking for business all the time-there are three or four of them, but three anyway-not distributing from Montreal and Halifax now? If it were feasible to do so I know that those companies would be moving bananas from those ports now. These companies can still bring bananas to Canadian ports direct. If another service is inaugurated there is no reason why the existing companies cannot come up the St. Lawrence with their bananas and enjoy the benefit of the free entry. That would practically ruin any opposition that might be attempted. In my opinion all these matters are worth considering. If the government simply wants the tariff for revenue I contend that a duty of fifty cents a bunch is too high. If for revenue purposes I suggest that a duty of twenty-five cents a bunch would be ample. If the tariff is needed for the other purpose I think it is entirely useless.


James Alexander Robb: I want to answer my hon.
friend who has just made two points. One point is that rather than try to divert this business to Canadian ports we should allow it to remain in New Orleans.


Robert Edwy Ryerson: Not at all.


James Alexander Robb: That is the unmistakable inference from the argument my hon. friend has advanced. And all the afternoon it has been argued that we should insist upon preference for preference and encourage Canadian trade. May I point out to my hon. friend,- and he was speaking particularly for Ontario -that he cannot sell the condensed milk, butter, and cheese, of Ontario in the United States market on the same favourable terms as he can under this agreement with the West India islands, and that if the business is distributed from New Orleans or Baltimore the railway that will get the long haul will

Ways and Means-Customs Tariff
be a United States railway. On the other hand if the imports come through Halifax, St. John, or Montreal, Canadian railways will get the benefit of the long haul, Canadian workmen at those ports will profit by the handling of the commodity, and the returning vessels will carry Canadian products intended for the West India islands. My hon. friend has argued that these products are distributed from Baltimore and New Orleans. I submit that if they can be shipped from St. John, Halifax, or Montreal and distributed to points in Ontario it would not take any longer than would the distribution from New Orleans.


Robert Edwy Ryerson: The difference in time
between shipments from New Orleans and shipments from Halifax is about five days.


James Alexander Robb: I am talking about products originating in the West India islands. They can be shipped from Montreal and distributed in Ontario just as quickly as they can from Baltimore. As to the other point my hon. friend made, I wondered when he made his statement if he was on the inside and knew something of the distributing companies at present doing this business. It has been stated that these companies could come in under this agreement and distribute the fruit throughout Canada. I do not contradict that. I do not see that there is anything in the agreement to hinder anybody from engaging in the business.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-105a. Pineapples in air-tight cans or other air-tight packages, n.o.p., the weight of cans or other packages to be included in the weight for duty, per pound: British preferential tariff, £ cent; intermediate tariff, 2£ cents; general tariff, 2£ cents.
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-134. All sugar above number sixteen Dutch standard in colour, and all refined sugars of whatever kinds, grades or standards, not covered by tariff item No. 135, and sugar syrups testing over fifty-six degrees of polarization, when not exceeding e ghty-eight degrees of polarization, per one hundred pounds: British preferential tariff, 83 cents; intermediate tariff, $1.50; general tariff, $1.50.
When exceeding eighty-eight degrees but not exceeding eighty-nine degrees, per one hundred pounds: British preferential tariff, 85 cents; intermediate tariff, $1.53; general tariff, $1.53.
When exceeding eighty-nine degrees but not exceeding ninety degrees, (per one hundrd pounds: British preferential tariff, 87 cents; intermediate tariff, $1.55; general tariff, $1.55.
When exceeding ninety degrees but not exceeding ninety-one degrees, per one hundred pounds: British preferential tariff, 89 cents; intermediate tariff, $1.58; general tariff, $1.58.
When exceeding ninety-one degrees but not exceeding ninety-two degrees, per one hundrd pounds: British preferential tariff, 91 cents; intermediate tariff, $1.62; general tariff, $1.62.
14011-229£
When exceeding ninety-two degrees but not exceeding ninety-three degrees, per one hundred pounds: British preferential tariff, 93 cents; intermediate tariff, $1.65; general tariff, $1.65.
When exceeding ninety-three degrees but not exceeding ninety-four degrees, per one hundred pounds: British preferential tariff. 95 cents; intermediate tariff, $1.68; general tariff, $1.68.
When exceeding ninety-four degrees but not exceeding	ninety-five	degrees,	per	one	hundred	pounds:
British preferential tariff. 97 cents; intermediate tariff, $1.70;. general tariff, $1.70.
When exceeding ninety-five degrees but not exceeding	ninety-six	degrees,	per	one	hundred	pounds:
British preferential tariff, 99 cents; Intermediate tariff, $1.74; general tariff, $1.74.
When exceeding ninety-six degrees but not exceeding	ninety-seven degrees, per	one	hundred	pounds:British	preferential	tariff.	$1.01;	intermediate	tariff,
$1.77; general tariff, $1.77.
When exceeding ninety-seven degrees but not exceeding	ninety-eight	degrees, per one hundred pounds:British	preferential	tariff,	$1.03;	intermediate	tariff,
$1.80; general tariff, $1.80.
When exceeding ninety-eight degrees but not exceeding	ninety-nine	degrees,	per	one	hundred	pounds:British	preferential	tariff.	$1.09;	intermediate	tariff,
$1.89; general tariff, $1.89.
When exceeding ninety-nine degrees, per one hundred pounds: British preferential tariff, $1.09; intermediate tariff, $1.89; general tariff, $1.89.
Provided that refined sugar shall be entitled to entry under the British Preferential Tariff upon evidence satisfactory to the Minister of Customs and Excise, that such refined sugar has been manufactured wholly from raw sugar produced in the British colonies and possessions, and not otherwise.
Provided further that sugar imported under this item shall not be subject to special duty in excess of three-fourths oif one cent per pound.
Charles Hazlitt Cahan: In respect of these reductions on sugar, are the British preferential tariff rates mentioned in the first column the rates which will be levied on sugars coming in under the West India treaty?" Do they coincide? I have been endeavouring to obtain a copy of the West India treaty from the distribution office* but I have not been able to get one this evening.


James Alexander Robb: Is my hon. friend referring to item 134?


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: Yes.


James Alexander Robb: There is no change whatever in that. I will point this out to my hon. friend if he will follow me:	He will notice
the words near the foot of the item after the figures "135"-
-and sugar syrups testing over fifty-six degrees of polarization, when not exceeding eighty-eight degrees of-
And so on. That was put in for administrative purposes because we discovered that sugar was being melted and brought in in tank cars at about a quarter of the proper rate and defrauding the revenues of the country.
3608	COMMONS
Ways and Means-Customs Tariff


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: Do I understand from the minister then that except for this further more explicit definition-


James Alexander Robb: There is no change.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: Then except for the purposes of the department the item remains the same?


James Alexander Robb: Just the same.


Henry Lumley Drayton: This is the refined sugar, is it not?


James Alexander Robb: Yes, the refined sugar.


Ernest Frederick Armstrong: Would
the minister be good enough to tell us the exact difference in the number of cents per hundred poundls between the figures which are in item 134 and the figures that will appear in connection with the west India and the Australia treaties?


James Alexander Robb: I am not sure that I follow my hon. friend. I think he is referring to the next item.


Henry Lumley Drayton: The change is in item 135.


Ernest Frederick Armstrong: Then as I understand it this item does not interfere in any way with the rates charged for refined sugar coming in from the West Indies and Australia?


James Alexander Robb: The rates are exactly the same as they were before.


Henry Lumley Drayton: As I understand it there is a change made in our raws. The raws are made cheaper than they were before, but there is absolutely no change in connection with our refined sugar. Item 134 stands as it was before except for the little change in the wording which does not amount to anything.


James Alexander Robb: Except for that there is no
change whatever.


Mr. BLACK (Halifax):: Under this tariff
a preference is given to bananas landed at Canadian ports. May I ask if the same principle is applied to sugar landed at Canadian ports?
Mr. ROBB- Beginning the first of January.


William Anderson Black: To enjoy the preference, sugar coming into Canada must be landed at a Canadian port?


James Alexander Robb: Under this rate.


Henry Lumley Drayton: I take it that
means everything?


James Alexander Robb: Everything.


Alfred (Fred) Davis: I look upon this as one of
the most important things we are going to deal with in connection with the tariff. We have to-day in the Dominion two big sugar refineries which are only producing ten per cent of the sugar consumed in Canada. Now, if there is one industry that should be taken care of and protected it is the sugar industry. Last year there was a sugar factory built in the town of Raymond, Alberta, which has been very successful. While last year there were only eight thousand acres under cultivation, this year ten thousand acres are being cultivated. The seed for the production of the sugar beet is brought into Canada from Germany. To produce all the sugar used in Canada which could be produced from sugar beet we could have under cultivation
300.000	acres of land, giving employment to
100.000	people. To transfer that into sugar
we could have ten factories of an equal capacity to the one at Wallaceburg. In Alberta we have 1,000,000 acres of irrigated land, and I suggest that there is no place in the Dominion where sugar beets can be grown more successfully than in that province. The average yield per acre from the sugar beet is about 2,200 pounds of sugar. If there is a bright spot in Canada for development it is in connection with the sugar industry, and seed can be produced in British Columbia of an equal quality	with	any seed that	has	everbeen shipped	from	Germany. It	will	takethree-quarters of a million dollars' worth of seed to produce the sugar in quantities sufficient for	home	consumption. I leavethese thoughts with the government for their consideration	when	making treaties.	Let
them consider what a great advantage that would be to Canada as a whole and what an enormous amount of employment it would give. In order to make it a huge success and to make the business profitable, the industry must, in common with all other industries, be protected to some extent. All I ask is that the government give a kindly hearing to these representations and endeavour to stimulate that industry in which such a great amount of labour can be employed. W7e have a splendid foundation for such an industry in Canada, and taking it all in all I think Canada has a great future before it in the development of this industry.


Mr. BURY:: I notice that all these figures
represent considerable reduction on the sugar items under item 135. I am not sufficiently familiar with the sugar industry in Alberta, but it seems to me that this item is going in the wrong direction. Under the previous tariff the British preferential, for instance, on

IJ'flz/s and Means-Customs Tariff
the first item under number 135, was 35 cents. Here is a reduction of almost 15 cents. In the same manner in the next item there is a reduction of practically 15 cents, and every single item under 135 shows a considerable reduction. I cannot see that the result will be otherwise than to injure the Alberta industry.


James Dew Chaplin: It has already
hurt it in Essex and Kent.


Alfred (Fred) Davis: Did the minister not say the duties had not been reduced in respect to this industry?


James Alexander Robb: Not on the refined.


Henry Lumley Drayton: But on the raw.


Ambrose Upton Gledstanes Bury: Here is 41 cents reduced to 21 cents and 41.50 reduced to 21.89, in some cases almost cut in two.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: With regard to the British
preferential tariff rates under item 135, are those the rates which will apply in case the British West India treaty is ratified, or will the British West India treaty necessitate a further reduction from these preferential tariff rates, as specified in the resolution now before the House?


Henry Lumley Drayton: Are these not
the treaty rates?


Mr CAHAN:: Are the rates mentioned
under the British preferential tariff in item 135 the reduced rates which will be enforced in accordance with the terms of the British West India treaty, or will the British West India treaty involve a further reduction than the rates here specified?


James Alexander Robb: No, these are the rates.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: It seems to me absurd that we should have negotiated a treaty with the British West Indies, asking from them certain reductions and preferences in view of this parliament making certain reductions in the tariff and giving certain preferences to the West Indies, and yet before the West India treaty is ratified we re-enact a rate of duty which takes from the government all power of future negotiation with respect to the matter. This is resolution number 2, and schedule A is in resolution number 2. Resolution number 5 enacts:
That any enactment founded on the foregoing resolutions number two and three shall be deemed to have come into force on the sixteenth day of April, one thousand nine hundred and twenty-six, and to have applied to all goods mentioned in the foregoing resolutions imported or taken out of warehouse for consumption on and after that day, and to have applied to goods previously imported for which no entry for consumption was made before that day.
So that now, with the West India treaty negotiated but not yet ratified, in respect to which the government have not presented the detailed information to the House which was promised as soon as certain tenders for steamships were received, the minister comes to the House and asks us by statute to enact that since the 16th day of April 1926, these reductions have actually been made which were the consideration offered by the government for certain tariff considerations to be granted by the West Indies. In other words, before the treaty is ratified we are now giving to the British West Indies, without any consideration having been offered by them in the way of tariff reductions, a free gift which takes away from the government all power of negotiation.	.


James Alexander Robb: My hon. friend, who is an
old experienced parliamentarian and who has been following the business of parliament for many years, will remember that in 1921, when the party he now supports made a treaty with the West India Islands, they adopted the same process and procedure.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: Before the treaty had been negotiated?


James Alexander Robb: After the treaty was negotiated, and it came into force the day the minister presented his budget. That is the way it is generally done. The hon. member says we are giving to the West Indies a gift or an additional concession. We are doing nothing of the kind. We are giving an additional concession-I will admit that at once -to the West India planter and to the Canadian sugar refiner. The Canadian sugar refiner will get a part of this benefit.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: In what respect?


James Alexander Robb: Because there is an additional something over 16 cents a hundred in their favour. I imagine they will divide it between them. Let me point this out to my hon. friend and to my friend from the west. When the West India delegates were in Canada they were most insistent that we should give them some additional advantages in their gray sugars. They wanted to get their grays into this market. We said: No, we must look after Canadian interests and the Canadian refiners. We had in mind the beet industries that were started throughout Canada and the Canadian refining industry that employs labour. We insisted on that, but I am not so sure to-day whether we were quite wise or not. I notice in the press of the United States that there is a good deal of criticism of the protection given to the refiners of that country, and I have noticed some of the same

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criticism in Canada. It is true there is not much to-day because sugar is fairly cheap; the raw sugar is cheap and consequently the refined is down in price. But if the price of sugar became high again we might find an agitation throughout this country for a little cheaper sugar for the Canadian people, so that I think we are dealing fairly well with the trade generally and with the West India planter.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: I do not understand that
a preference given to the West Indies is >f very much advantage to the Canadian sugar refiner, because the Canadian refiner of imported raw sugar will certainly charge up again to the Canadian consumer whatever duty he pays on the raw article. But this is the point I wish to' make: We have negotiated a treaty with the West Indies; that treaty has been submitted to the consideration of this House and it is not yet ratified. In the treaty there appear certain provisions with regard to steamship subsidies and the employment of steamships. 'The Minister of Finance stated before the long adjournment that at the close of that adjournment he hoped to be in a position to place before the House the result of the tenders then being received so that the House would be in a position to decide definitely whether or not it would ratify the West India treaty as a whole. But before that treaty, which provides for certain preferences on the sugar tariff in favour of the West Indies, has been finally ratified by the House the minister presents to us resolutions granting to the West Indies every preference which the West Indies would have had if the treaty itself had been ratified. I ask the minister if he is not thereby throwing away every consideration which he offered to the West 'India delegates as grounds for their making corresponding concessions to Canada. He says: This is the ordinary practice of the House and the practice which was followed when the previous West India treaty was brought before the House by the previous government. I suggest to the minister that when the reductions were made in the general tariff on the previous occasion the West India treaty had been ratified by parliament, and these tariff amendments were made in order to conform to the treaty which had been ratified. It seems to me, with all deference, that the Minister of Finance, if I may use the expression, is now placing the cart before the horse. Before the treaty is ratified, before he is in a position to place before the House the material and salient facts which will be grounds for ratification of that treaty, we have resolutions introduced

which grant all those concessions and which under the terms of the fifth resolution come into full force and effect on the 16th day of April, 1926.
In order to deal fairly with the public interests of this country I suggest to the minister that we should in these resolutions take power in the government to make the reductions which are here made, but that the reductions so made should come into force only by authority of an order in council to be passed when the corresponding treaty with the British West Indies comes into full force and operation. I am suggesting that as being fair to the House and to the country and conserving the interests of all parties.


Henry Lumley Drayton: I do not think no attention should be paid to the remarks of the hon. member.


James Alexander Robb: I was waiting to see if other
hon. gentlemen had observations to make.


Henry Lumley Drayton: It would be a
good thing to get rid of this question; it is the same as I have suggested with regard to the cocoa item. These are treaty items and the treaty is not yet ratified. There are some difficulties in connection with the treaty and my hon. friend has recognized them. He has recognized in connection with bananas that the matter cannot become law now. He keeps his hand on it; he is going to police it. T! e change in the duty on bananas does not come into effect now; it will come into effect only when the government takes action. All that the hon. member for St. Lawrence-St. George is suggesting is that precisely the same thing shall be done in connection with sugar as has been done in connection with bananas. It s done in connection with bananas simply because there is the contingency not only . that the treaty may not be ratified but that there may be difficulties in regard to supplying the service. But the fact that the difficulty is greater in connection with bananas than in connection with sugar is no reason why the same course should not be followed in connection with both. If my hon. friend will arrange when the bill comes down to have a provision inserted that the change will come into effect only when the appropriate order in council is passed after the agreement is ratified, that is the easiest thing to do. If my hon. friend says he will do it, the thing is settled at once.


James Alexander Robb: I am following the procedure which my hon. friend followed in 1921. I have under my hand a memorandum sent out to the collectors of customs and excise indicating that the West India rates have

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been brought into effect prior to the ratification of the treaty. Regarding the observations of the hon. member for St. Lawrence-St. George, I hold the position again that this is a concession to the Canadian people as well as to the West India planter. They may divide it between them, but this additional concession on the raws cannot 'all go to the planter. If later for any reason the AVest India agreement is not put through, there will be nothing to hinder us in another parliament from correspondingly reducing the duty on refined sugars. Does my hon. friend favour a reduction in refined sugars corresponding to the reduction in the raws?


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: If there is a reduction in raw sugar and no corresponding reduction in refined sugar you give a greater protection to the refiners than they had before. It all depends upon the disclosures of an investigation as to whether the refiners are getting sufficient protection or too much, whether they are profiteering or not. What I say is this: In order to negotiate with the British West Indies we need to keep up the tariff on raw sugars. For my part I would keep them up on refined sugars to a corresponding extent so as to give adequate protection to the Canadian refiners. The minister by proposing to put the reduction in raw sugars into force from a specified date, is giving to the West Indies, without any consideration in return, a concession which he previously reserved as a ground on which to negotiate a treaty which he commends to the House for support. That is impolitic and it is unbusinesslike. I suggest that he reconsider that decision, because, in my opinion at least, when the bill comes before the House for discussion we should protest the manner in which the minister is carrying out these reductions before the treaty has been ratified by parliament. In the bill he might very well consider the advisability of bringing this provision into operation by order in council after the treaty has been ratified. If that treaty were not ratified I for one would not endorse the reductions at all. I am simply supporting them, if I do support them, on the ground that they are concessions given in a treaty with the West Indies in return for which we are to receive certain equivalent values. On that ground I am prepared to consider favourably the items suggested in the West India treaty. On the other hand the minister recognizes, I am sure, as well as does the hon. member for East Lambton, that in making these reductions on raw sugar he is taking away from the beet sugar industry of this country a large part of the
protection which it now has. He is in effect, without any inquiry or even any suggestion of an inquiry, reducing the protection which has been allowed to the cultivation of beets in Canada, and he will destroy to a very large extent, I believe, and certainly will prejudice very seriously the Canadian producers of beet-root. There is no doubt, from the knowledge and experience we have, that beets can be grown in the province of Quebec in sufficient quantities to supply a large part of the sugar needed for consumption in that province. We all know, too, that Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia are in large part as well adapted to the growing of beets and the production of beet sugar as are Germany, Belgium and northern France, and there is no reason in the world why we should not, so far as we possibly can, safeguard and foster that growing industry, looking to the future.
To sum up, therefore: my objection is that by statute the minister is now reducing the tariff, the reductions to come into
10	p.m. force from a specified date, when they should be made effective only upon ratification of the treaty. He should reserve the power to make the reductions by order in council, contingent upon the treaty with the West Indies being ratified. In any case, in my point of view, he should put up the duty even higher on raw sugar, giving a preference to the West Indies and at the same time retaining adequate protection for this growing industry in Canada.


James Alexander Robb: Had my hon. friend been one of those who negotiated the agreement with the AVest Indies he would have had the representation made to him that an increase in the protection would meet with serious opposition from the fruit growers of Ontario who require sugars in large quantities for the canning industry; and if he had ventured to put up the duty as high as he now suggests he would have put the canning industry out of business.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: I take exception to that
statement entirely; I know something about the matter.


James Alexander Robb: That is the opinion of the
men who grow fruit, and that was the representation made to us.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: All the more reason for an inquiry.


James Alexander Robb: They know something about
their own business. Far from putting the beet sugar industry in a serious position we are improving it, because we are stabilizing
3612	COMMONS
Ways and Means-Customs Tariff
the industry for twelve years under this agreement. For that length of time the spread now proposed will be maintained. As regards making changes in the bill, I will consider the matter overnight, although I should prefer to follow the procedure of the former Minister of Finance (Sir Henry Drayton) and put it through. My hon. friend (Mr. Cahan) quarrels because we are putting this through before the West India agreement is ratified. May I suggest that there is no one more responsible for the delay than the hon. gentleman himself. He led a group of gentlemen who carried on a debate from the seventh of January, causing a serious delay.


Robert James Manion: We were no more responsible for that delay than hon. gentlemen opposite.


James Alexander Robb: Well, admitting that we were
all in it-


Robert James Manion: Yes, admit that.


James Alexander Robb: -there has been a delay, just the same. The West Indies carried out their part of the bargain, putting through the necessary legislation so far as they were concerned. I do not know whether my hon. friend was in the House when I told hon. members that representations had been made to us that certain people were prepared to put on a steamer service between Canada and the West Indies. We want therefore to be in a position to enjoy the benefits of the trade at the earliest possible moment.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: I want to repudiate one suggestion. The minister as a man of honour will admit that he has never yet been in a position to submit to the House the actual facts necessary to enable the House to form an opinion, either favourable or unfavourable, upon the West India treaty. Long ago the minister admitted that he had delayed asking for tenders so long that, as a matter of fact, the returns had not yet come in, so that he was unable to give us any details whatever as to the cost of the proposed service. It is therefore entirely his own fault that nothing has been done in the matter. Whether it was himself or someone else that did so I cannot remember, but a member sought to excuse the government on the ground that they had been so taken up with the elections in September and October as to have had no opportunity for calling for tenders and placing the facts before the country. I therefore take no responsibility for any delay. Personally I do not wish to press the matter. I am not sufficiently informed as to the 
practices that have formerly obtained, but I am free to admit that in my opinion there have been many bad practices which should be avoided by future governments, and this is one. We should not reduce our general tariff to correspond with preferential treaties before those preferential treaties are in force.


Henry Lumley Drayton: I had to tell
my hon. friend the other day that it was a matter of astonishment to me that he is so keen on following form and leaving out substance; he follows the letter but always forgets the principle. If he would only follow the principle of former administrations we would not have to say anything at all to him; he would be right. However, my hon. friend says that he will consider the matter and see what can be done, so I will say no more at present. But I would like to ask my hon. friend the reason for the changes in the schedule, apart from those changes necessitated by the West India treaty?


James Alexander Robb: It was pointed out by men
accustomed to figure out these polarization tests that it was not quite correct, and this is brought in to follow exactly the practice of the British Board of Customs and Excise.


Henry Lumley Drayton: Are these now
in accordance with the British board?


James Alexander Robb: Yes.


Henry Lumley Drayton: I notice that
the rearrangement does not seem to be made under any exact percentage at all, over and above what we had before.


James Alexander Robb: It was taken up at the time
by the experts.


Henry Lumley Drayton: If you take
polarization at 90 degrees, which I think is a practical degree, you will notice that besides the change which would be necessary for the treaty under the British preferential tariff, there are changes in the intermediate and general tariffs. For example, the general tariff was $1.07457; it is now advanced to $1.11000, and while that is advanced I see that on higher degrees of polarization, taking the 98 degrees as an example, it is reduced. Do I understand now that that is merely correcting former errors?


James Alexander Robb: Yes. If my hon. friend will
look at the minutes of the meeting he will discover that the West India experts and the Canadian representatives had a considerable discussion, and we suggested that they retire as a committee and agree upon it. This is exactly in conformity with the practice of

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the British Board of Customs and Excise, which enables them to keep their records correct. They have a preference in the United Kingdom as well.


Henry Lumley Drayton: Our importations under the preferential tariff are small as compared with those under other tariffs, as I recall it; I think we get a great deal of our raws from Cuba, which does not come under the British preferential tariff. But why should there be a change made in the intermediate and general tariffs this time?


James Alexander Robb: I imagine it is making it
uniform, to correspond with the others.


Henry Lumley Drayton: But it is not
made uniform; there is no uniform change at all. In connection with the British preferential there is a drop of almost 15 per cent, while in the intermediate tariff the drop is not 10 cents.


James Alexander Robb: The error might have been
greater before; that is the only explanation I have in mind.


Henry Lumley Drayton: But that is an
explanation which cannot explain. You will find the same condition where you have rectified it.


James Alexander Robb: They start at 96 degrees and
work back.


Henry Lumley Drayton: That is not^ the point. You have a reduction in the British tariff altogether out of line with those reductions made in the intermediate and gen* eral tariffs. I am not raising any point as to that reduction, but if the sole reason for the changes in the intermediate and general tariffs is that the preferential tariff is changed, why is not the proportion preserved?


James Alexander Robb: I understand it was simply
made to conform with the British practice. I am bound to say that it was beyond me to understand those experts when they were figuring it out.


Henry Lumley Drayton: My hon. friend will see that when we had a higher degree of protection our sugar beet growers were much better looked after. I am delighted to see one thing, however; my hon. friend to-day is a convert to the ideas of his predecessors as to the necessity of stability. He said today that this is a great thing for the growers of sugar beets in Canada, because they will now know that for twelve years they are to have stability. So I take it that he is now a convert to what Mr. Fielding told us a few years ago as to the necessity of tariff stability.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: Where does the stability
come in?


Henry Lumley Drayton: Because a contract has been made with the West Indies which is to run for twelve years.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: But it does not prevent
this government from reducing the tariff still more in favour of the West Indies.


Henry Lumley Drayton: N.o, but the
minister says there will be stability now, because that contract runs for twelve years. The great thing is that we now have a convert to tariff stability, although I do not know how long the conversion will last. Be that as it may, I would like to ask what the minister's advice is as to the manner in which the product of the sugar beet grower is purchased. I understand that it is purchased having regard to the cost of raw cane sugars; then again there is a further determining factor, the degree of sugar content in the sugar beet. Those are the two factors. I would like to know whether in fixing this duty, having regard to the position of the sugar beet grower, my hon. friend has considered that question and whether he thinks I am stating the position correctly. If not, perhaps he would say what the correct position is. I want to know upon what basis prices are fixed for the sugar beet growers in Canada.


James Alexander Robb: It is upon the saccharine
content, I think.


Henry Lumley Drayton: Plus what?


James Alexander Robb: I can get that.


Henry Lumley Drayton: I can tell my hon. friend; it is something absolutely necessary to know. It is not only based upon the saccharine content, but also upon the general ruling price of cane raws.


James Alexander Robb: I think that is so.


Henry Lumley Drayton: My hon. friend agrees. What is my hon. friend told by those doing the figuring for him that the effect of a drop in the price of raw cane sugars of 5 cents a hundred, as a result of a reduction of 5 cents in the duty, has upon a ton of sugar beets? Is the reduction to the grower as I have found it to be, 50 cents? Perhaps my hon. friend can ascertain that now.


James Alexander Robb: I do not think I could give that information to my hon. friend. But, as he knows, there has been a great drop in the price of raws all over the world.


Henry Lumley Drayton: Yes.
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W ays and Means-Customs Tariff


James Alexander Robb: I will admit at once that the growers of beets have not the same encouragement to-day to put in their crop as they had when the prices were very much higher.


Henry Lumley Drayton: We really require to know the basis, Mr. Chairman, when we consider what we are doing to the producers of sugar beets. Surely my hon. friend's adviser can tell him whether I am right or wrong, that when you wipe 5 cents a hundred off the duty on cane sugars you automatically knock 50 cents a ton off the value of the product of the sugar beet producer. I think this is right.


James Alexander Robb: I am told they are practically in the same position as they were before under the general tariff.


Henry Lumley Drayton: Is my hon. friend really serious about that? Is it the position of this government that in connection with the importation of raws the amount of duty is not reflected in the price, and that there is not a decrease in the cost of raw sugars in Canada when the duty is reduced? Will my hon. friend say that? It follows from his former remark.


James Alexander Robb: If the hon. member for St. Lawrence-St. George is right there is no difference


Henry Lumley Drayton: That is not what I asked. The hon. minister said a few minutes ago, Mr. Chairman, if I understood him rightly-he will correct me if I am wrong, for I do not wish to misrepresent him-he said that the position of our beet growers was just'as it was before having regard to the general tariff.


James Alexander Robb: Practically.


Henry Lumley Drayton: But there are reductions in the general tariff. Is it the position of this government that there is no economy whatever to be got out of reducing duties? That follows from what he has said. I know very often that that is true; but is that the position of this government? We have been told that a reduction in duty is a great thing for the consumer. Now my hon. friend says it makes no difference at all.


James Alexander Robb: No, I said the hon. member for St. Lawrence-St. George had said it would make no difference.


Henry Lumley Drayton: I do not think so. I thought the hon. gentleman said that the beet man was left in the same position.


James Alexander Robb: Practically in the same position under the general tariff.


Henry Lumley Drayton: Although the general tariff has been reduced, I want to be absolutely fair to my hon. friend in connection with this. Surely he will admit-he has already admitted it-that as the price is fixed having regard to the cost of these raws, if, for example, we got in enough sugar under the British preferential tariff to look after all our raws, why then the grower of sugar beets would be practically out of business; there would be a reduction there proportionately of almost fifty per cent. But I am quite willing to admit, Mr. Chairman, that that is not the case, that we have a lot of sugars which do not come in under this item. But what does my hon. friend say as to the protection that ought to be given to the grower of sugar beets; where does he come in here? What is my hon. friend's idea as to the proportion that his price is cut? It seems to me his price would be cut five per cent again. That was done in 1923 by the Fielding budget.


Ernest Frederick Armstrong: Mr. Chairman, if the hon. minister is not going to answer the member for West Y'ork, I should like to place myself on record as being strongly opposed to this item in every particular. I have already given a great many figures in support of my argument, and I do not intend to prolong the debate any more than to put myself on record, as I have said, strongly in opposition to this item going through in its present form. The member for East Calgary has already told the committee what a serious effect the reduction would have * on the sugar beet farmers in his riding. Should you come down to my part of Ontario where tens of thousands of acres of sugar beets are grown, and where hundreds of thousands of acres could be put under sugar beet cultivation to advantage, you would appreciate how important it is, Mr. Chairman, that instead of discouraging sugar beet growing by lowering the duty on raw sugars our sugar beet producers should be given every encouragement, To-day raw beets from tens of thousands of acres in western Ontario are being sent to the United States sugar refineries, 83 cents a ton excise tax being paid on every ton of those beets entering the United States. There the beets are manufactured into refined sugar, which is brought back into Canada, because we produce only 10 per cent of our requirements. We are importing the other 90 per cent when we should be encouraging the industry here.
Let me draw the minister's attention to a few of the facts put on Hansard the other day by the member for Kent (Mr. Chaplin).

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He mentioned that when in 1923 the minister reduced the duty half a cent a pound the refineries at Chatham and Wallaceburg reduced the price of sugar beets to the farmers 50 cents a ton. Now, if I understand it correctly-and the information I have is from a most reliable source-this further reduction in duty will amount at least to one cent a pound. If that is the case, then our farmers can expect for the next twelve years that another dollar per ton will be taken off their sugar beets in order that the West Indies and Australia may have this preference. I apeal to the minister to consider the matter very seriously. I have already told him of a sugar refinery that was under way in my home town when the minister made the reduction of half a cent a pound on refined sugar, a refinery on which $200,000 had been "expended, contributed to by four thousand farmers. Those people are very anxious to carry on. The member for Kent told the minister that in 1923 there weie 40,000 acres under sugar beets in his riding, and after the reduction in the duty on refined sugar the area cultivated dropped the following year to 30,000 acres, and that he does not expect the acreage this year will be over 20,000 acres. If the minister would come to my riding, which adjoins that of the hon. gentleman in question, he would find a similar state of affairs. Ever since the reduction was made in the duty on refined sugar, and the fifty cents bounty per ton was taken off sugar beets, the farmers have become so discouraged that they have decreased the crop year by year. This further reduction will help to drive them out of business.
I have just one other word to say and it is this:	I want the minister to' remember that
while the farmers were getting $8 and $10 a ton at outside points for sugar beets some years ago, to-day they are only receiving $5 or $5.50 per ton. The men who raise those beets have to do the hardest kind of work, and the beets have to be taken to market when the roads are in the worst possible condition. I again urge upon the minister the need of giving assistance to the sugar beet growers of Canada, either along some other line, or else restoring the tariff to where it stood some years ago.


Abraham Albert Heaps: Has the minister any idea
under what conditions sugar is grown in the West Indies? Is the labour employed indentured labour or free labour?


James Alexander Robb: I understand that in the West India islands there is no indentured labour of any kind. In Australia, as my hon. friend
knows, where they boast of having a white man's country, one of their difficulties is the high cost of labour. I think there is some indentured labour in the Fiji islands, and possibly in British Guiana. I do not know of any other places where the system obtains.


William Anderson Black: I may say that
sugar is produced in the West India islands, speaking generally, by labour that earns about forty cents a day.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: Will the Minister of Finance not be quite frank and admit that the peculiar way in which this resolution is introduced, and that it is to come into force as of April, is due to the fact that hon. gentlemen have about made up their minds that the West India treaty is not likely to be ratified, and that they are offering these concessions to the West Indies as a solatium for not getting the full benefits of the treaty itself?


James Alexander Robb: I am not sure that I understand my hon. friend? Does he insinuate that the West India agreement will not come into force? Is that the idea?


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: I am suggesting that possibly the tenders which the hon. gentleman received were so very high as to place it beyond the government's power to ratify and carry out the terms of the West India agreement, and it occurred to me that possibly this resolution is introduced as a solatium to the West India islands in case they do not get the full benefits of the treaty.


James Alexander Robb: My hon. friend is wrong in his conjecture.


Ambrose Upton Gledstanes Bury: I should like to call the
attention of the minister to the fact that the reductions proposed in the schedule now before us, which are not merely in respect of the British preferential tariff, but also in respect of the general tariff, follow very drastic reductions. For example, taking the first class of sugar mentioned in item No. 135, the British preferential tariff was reduced from 70 cents in 1922 to 35 cents in 1924. Now it is cut to 20.627 cents. The intermediate tariff in 1922 was $1.16080. In the last tariff which we are proposing to change now it. was reduced to 81.08 cents, and a further reduction is now proposed to 70.851 cents. So that this really is not one reduction, it represents a process of reductions, reductions that must be hitting the beet growing industry in Alberta and elsewhere in Canada. What I want to know is why the reduction in the intermediate tariff
3616	COMMONS
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and the general tariff are necessary. I understand that the reductions in the British preferential tariff axe necessary, but why should reductions in the other tariffs be conceded?


James Alexander Robb: When my hon. friend was
not in the House, I explained that the idea was to have uniformity and to follow the practice of the British Board of Customs and Excise. My hon. friend has mentioned rates as low as SI and 71 cents, but there is practically no sugar which comes in under 90.40 polarization.


Ambrose Upton Gledstanes Bury: Are the beet growers of this
country to lose the benefit of protection merely in order that the minister may adjust his schedule to some British schedule?


James Alexander Robb: No.


Ambrose Upton Gledstanes Bury: I cannot understand the
minister's explanation of the reduction in the intermediate and the general tariffs. The minister has just explained this reduction by saying that he wanted to make his schedule conform to the English schedule. I ask him now, are the beet growers of this country to be put out of business simply because it is supposed to be of benefit that the schedule here should conform to the principles of the British schedule?


James Alexander Robb: My hon. friend, who comes
from Alberta, will feel better satisfied if I tell him that I have under my hand a letter from the Canadian Sugar Factories Limited of Raymond, Alberta, who direct my attention to the difficulties of their business. They do not complain so much of the tariff, but they do tell me that they suffered considerably last year owing to early frosts, shrunken beets, and conditions of that kind. They go on to assure me that the people of Alberta are putting in practically the same acreage, indeed a little more, than they did the previous year. I imagine that they are going to make some request to the federal government or the provincial government because they direct my attention to the fact that the United Kingdom subsidizes the beet growers in that country.


Mr BURY:: In other words, as I understand the minister, they are going to suggest
a subsidy?


James Alexander Robb: I do not say they are, but
they direct my attention to certain facts.


Ambrose Upton Gledstanes Bury: That appears to be the suggestion, that they will require a subsidy of some kind.


James Alexander Robb: No; I did not say that.


Ambrose Upton Gledstanes Bury: What is the date of that
letter?


James Alexander Robb: May 7, 1926.


Ambrose Upton Gledstanes Bury: Could the minister tell us whether the tariff changes embodied in this schedule were made before the sugar refiners wrote that letter?


James Alexander Robb: The budget was delivered on April 15. I do not say they are satisfied.


Robert James Manion: The minister said they did not complain much of the tariff. What did they say?


James Alexander Robb: They made a reference to the conditions and said the}' hoped there would be no further reduction.


An hon. MEMBER:: Did they tell the
minister how much money they lost last, year?


James Alexander Robb: No.


Ernest Frederick Armstrong: Would
the minister tell us the wages per day of the men W'orking in the fields in the West Indies?


James Alexander Robb: I have not that information.


Henry Lumley Drayton: I think the minister said about forty cents.


James Alexander Robb: I did not say so.


Ernest Frederick Armstrong: On raw sugar delivered from the West Indies, how much more will the refineries at Wallace-burg and Chatham pay than the sugar refineries in the east?


James Alexander Robb: I am not sure whether my hon. friend was in the House when the West India agreement was before us. I made a statement in reference to that matter. It was pointed out to me that the refinery at Wallaceburg would not be in as good a position as the refineries close to tidewater. It so happened that representatives of the two Canadian railways were in Ottawa at that time, and I suggested to them that inasmuch as they were sure of getting the additional aaul on the West India business inward and mtward they could very well afford to absorb ;he difference and place the refinery in iVallaceburg in as good a position as they would be if the product were being sent up from New York-because that is where they were getting it. The complaint was not of the change in the tariff, but that under the conditions they were compelled to come in by a Canadian port. Heretofore the product was brought in from New York, and it was thought reasonable they could meet the rate.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.

Ways and Means-Customs Tariff
Customs tariff-156b. Angostura bitters, the produce or manufacture of any of the colonies enumerated in section 8A of the customs tariff 1907, when conveyed without transshipment by ship direct into a sea or river port of Canada, per gallon: British preferential tariff, $5; intermediate tariff, -; general tariff, -.
Henry Lumley Drayton: What are the two blanks there for?


James Alexander Robb: To make it clear that only the British preference is affected.


Henry Lumley Drayton: .Is it not usual to put in the other rates so that there may be no misunderstanding?


James Alexander Robb: No.


Donald Sutherland: What is the object in reducing the rate from $10 to $5?


James Alexander Robb: It is a concession we gave to one of the islands-Trinidad, I think.


Donald Sutherland: What quantity of angostura bitters was used last year?
Mr. R.OBB: I have no idea, I do not use any of them.


Donald Sutherland: I
would imagine my hon. friend would have some idea before making a reduction of So in the rate.


James Alexander Robb: There was no separate classification.


Donald Sutherland: Why take this item out from the other items and give it a preference of $5 over that which it had heretofore? Surely the minister made some inquiry as to the effect of the reduction? Or is it a parity with the whole tariff-based on no general principle, but simply a matter of convenience?


James Alexander Robb: It was represented to us during the conference that angostura bitters are used in the preparation of certain drags. In the United States, where they are supposed to be bone dry-although we have heard through the customs inquiry they are not-the rate was only two and one-half. They wanted us to make it two and one-half, but we said it was a matter of revenue and we made it $5.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: Angostura bitters were manufactured, unless there has been a recent change, by a family which employed about half a dozen hands. Why should a special consideration of S3 be made in favour of a family monopoly such as that?


James Alexander Robb: The rate is two and one-half in the United States and we are getting IS out of it.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-216a. Cresylic acid when imported for use only by manufacturers in the manufacture of preparations for disinfecting, dipping and spraying: British preferential tariff, free; intermediate tariff, free; general tariff, free.
Mr. BARBER:: What is that?


James Alexander Robb: This is a new item. There is no separate classification of the imports, but the import is small. This acid will be used in the manufacture of non-alcoholic liquid preparations for disinfectant, .dipping and spraying, which are subject to a duty in tariff item 209.


Henry Lumley Drayton: Is that produced here?


James Alexander Robb: No.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-295a. Zirconium silicate: British preferential tariff, free; intermediate tariff, free; general tariff, free.
James Alexander Robb: This is a new silicate. It is now subject to a rate of 15, 17A and 17}; in the French convention it was 15}. We propose to make it free all along the line. There is no separate classification of imports. It is used largely in the manufacture of fire clay and fire brick. Fire clay is free of duty and the fire brick is subject to a low rate of duty.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-384c. Rolled sheets of iron or steel coated with tin, of a class or kind not manufactured in Canada: British preference tariff, free; intermediate tariff, 5 per cent; general tariff, 5 per cent.
Charles Hazlitt Cahan: I think we should have some explanation in regard to this item. For some time past negotiations have been taking place in Montreal by manufacturers of rolled sheets of iron and steel. There have been negotiations also on behalf of American companies, and I understand that English and American interests have gone in with the Canadian undertaking for the manufacture at Montreal of rolled sheets and sheets of iron and tin, which would employ one thousand hands at least in the first year. I notice this item says: "Rolled sheets of iron or steel coated with tin, of a class or kind not manufactured in Canada." Does that mean that so soon as factories are established in Canada and begin to produce their output, this reduction
361S	COMMONS	7;
Ways and Means-Customs Tariff
of 5 per cent in the general tariff, 5 per cent in the intermediate tariff, and free under the British preferential tariff, will no longer apply, and that the old rate, which was 12-


James Alexander Robb: It was 12-1.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: that the old rate will ipso facto come into force?


James Alexander Robb: The understanding of the hon. member is I think correct. It has been represented to us for some time that an industry of this kind was to be established in Canada. It has not been established, and in the meantime the canning industry generally, fish, fruit and other products that are put up in tms, have been suffering. This is a concession to them It is estimated that one-half the tin plate is exported, in which case, as hon. members know they get a rebate of 99 per cent. We are now making it so that the local industries will be in a better position, and as my hon. friend pointed out, when it is made in Canada then it reverts to the other tariff item.	'


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: I am very anxious that that should be done, not that I have any personal interests in the matter, but the constituents whom I represent have a very deep interest in it. Will the hon. gentleman consult the Solicitor General or the attorneys of his department and see if the wording cannot be slightly changed so as to read:
Rolled sheets of iron or steel coated with tin, of a class or kind not manufactured in Canada and so long as it is not manufactured in Canada.
Or some such words as would make the item more clear and definite than it is at present, because as it is now worded those who are interested, after consulting their attorneys, are afraid that it may not mean just what I have suggested to the minister and what the minister confirms to be its meaning.


James Alexander Robb: I am here representing the people generally, and this is the language that has been followed in regard to some other items of the tariff. I can assure my hon. friend that the customs officials will deal fairly with this industry as they have dealt fairly with all other industries, but we do not propose to put ourselves in a position where some very clever attorney, in order to come under the act, may say to the Customs department: I am manufacturing this in Canada now, when perhaps he has only a little shop ten by twelve and is not manufacturing in sufficient quantities reasonably to supply the trade. The matter should be left to the officials to administer so that they may be certain that manufacturers are able to supply the public with a

reasonable quantity. The law officers of the Department of Justice and the legal advisers of the Department of Customs and Excise advise us that this is the correct language for that sort of item.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: I want nothing more than justice, and I am simply suggesting that justice should be done; that the factory-should be one that can reasonably supply the trade or a large part of the trade. But in justice to those who are undertaking work of that kind I think the minister should make the item as dear and definite as possible in the statute so that there may be no misunderstanding. It is not the duty of the legal advisers of the Department of Customs and Excise to make laws or to add to or subtract from laws by interpretation. This matter is so vital that the hon. gentleman might at least consider whether it could not be made more definite by inserting, if necessary, this provision:
So long as it is not manufactured in Canada to an extent to satisfy the demand in Canada.
Or something of that kind.


James Alexander Robb: I understand the practice in -the department is that it must be manufactured in commercial quantities. The customs officials are dealing with these items every day and my hon. friend can rely upon them to interpret the item fairly.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
James Alexander Robb: I would suggest that we pass over the automobile items and clean up the others. I imagine hon. members will desire to discuss the automobile items more fully.


Henry Lumley Drayton: Perhaps my hon. friend has some new light for us first.


James Alexander Robb: We will clean up the other items.
Customs tariff-448. Spraying machines, fruit or vegetable grading machines, incubators for hatching eggs, brooders for rearing young fowl, pruning hooks, pruning shears, hay loaders, potato-diggers, fodder or feed cutters, grain crushers, fanning mills, hay tedders, farm or field rollers, post hole diggers, snaths, milking machines, milking machine attachments: centrifugal machines for testing butter fat, milk or cream; pasteurizers for dairying purposes; equipment for generating electric power for farm purposes only, viz: engine, generator, storage battery and switch board; stumping machines, and other agricultural implements, n.o.p., and complete parts of articles specified in this tariff item: British preferential tariff, 5 per cent; intermediate tariff, 10 per cent; general tariff, 10 per cent.
The part referring to-
Pasteurizers for dairying purposes; equipment for generating electric power for farm purposes only, viz: engine, generator, storage battery and switchboard-
-is new.

Ways and Means-Customs Tariff


Henry Lumley Drayton: What is the
effect of it?


James Alexander Robb: The effect is to bring those
items under that classification.


Henry Lumley Drayton: What is supposed to be the effect on the treasury


James Alexander Robb: A loss of roughly $87,500.


Donald Sutherland: What is the present tariff on equipment for generating electric power for farm purposes?


James Alexander Robb: Ten, twenty-five and twenty-seven and one-half per cent. It is now reduced to five, ten and ten per cent. The items going into the manufacture of this can be imported at 6 per cent under the general tariff, under items 445a and 445b, so that we are not placing the manufacturers in any worse position. This is a concession to the farmers of the country.


Donald Sutherland: How many firms are manufacturing these lighting plants in Canada and what is the value of the output during the past year from these factories?


James Alexander Robb: I regret I have not the information before me. I will try to get it for my hon. friend.


Donald Sutherland: In
the meantime we shall have passed the item and damage will have been done. I know as a matter of fact some of these industries have been established in Canada under the impression that they would be practically safe with a tariff of 25 to 27 per cent. Now the minister proposes to reduce that to 10 per cent. Some of them have only recently been established and they are turning out a splendid output. They should receive some consideration from the government; the minister surely does not intend to allow the impression to go abroad that he has made this reduction without making any inquiry into the matter.


James Alexander Robb: I will admit that I have looked very carefully into the matter. I have observed outside and I have heard it frequently said in this House that the young men and women are being lured away from the farms to the bright lights of the cities. I propose, so far as I am able, to put it within the reach of the farmer, who is far away from the electric current in the cities, to have cheap light.


Henry Lumley Drayton: My hon. friend gives us a very fine generalization, but I have not yet learned that tariffs are built upon generalizations. He has a laudable object in
front of him and I would like to follow it out with him. I would like him to take any one item he likes and tell us what the difference in cost is to be to the people of the country. That is a question to be considered when we are going to get the bright lights on the farm. What does this mean?


James Alexander Robb: It means that the government will lose, as I said before, about $87,500 through reduction in customs revenue. We will not lose all of that in the manufactured product; we will lose part of it in the raw material that maybe imported. Some raw material will be produced in Canada and not imported. We lose in addition to that $55,000 in sales tax so that there will be a concession of $142,500 of taxation, making it easier for people far away from electric current developed in the cities and from water power, to get their own electric light.


Henry Lumley Drayton: My hon. friend has not told me yet what reduction in price he is figuring on. What is the output in Canada? What is the disturbance? What was the previous net protection which these people had?


James Alexander Robb: They had a protection of 15, 25 and 27+ per cent. Under the French convention the protection is 22+ per cent.
Sir HENRY' DRAYTON:	That means
nothing, stated without qualification. The minister is aware that the item includes matters of revenue to this country as well as the element of protection. What I want to know is what their net protection is. Have all the tariff reductions this year been arrived at without any idea of what net protection means?


Mr. McMILLAN:: If there is one class of people in the country who ought to have the benefit of electric lighting and generating plants it is the farmers, especially in sections where hydro-electric power is not available. So far these plants, apart from installation, have cost around $350 to $375, and repair parts, when needed, cost in Canada 50 per cent more than they do in the United States. It would therefore make a considerable difference to the farmers who wish to instal electric lighting apparatus to have plants and parts brought within reason in the matter of price. This is one indispensable utility which makes for a greater degree of comfort in farm life. With an electric plant the farm can be supplied with power for various machinery including washers, irons, and, in the barn, fanning mills, grindstones, cream separators, and so forth.
3620	COMMONS
Ways and Means-Customs Tariff


Robert James Manion: How do the prices of these things compare in the United States and Canada?


Thomas McMillan: I do not know what the respective prices are to-day, but for four or five years I sold these plants in my own section of the country, and at that time I had a thorough knowledge of prices. I do know, however, that repair parts cost to-day in Canada 50 per cent more than they have to pay in the United States.
Mr. SUTHERLAND (South Oxford: The hon. member (Mr.. McMillan) has had experience in handling plants manufactured in the United States and he says that the firms here are charging double what they charge across the border. Well, after putting the manufacturers in this country out of business, what better position shall we be in than at the present time? The words "for farm purposes" in this connection do not mean very much. In towns and cities where electrical power is available that power will certainly be used, while in rural districts where hydro power is not generated these small plants are installed. We have some factories turning out these plants and their work is
11	p.m. most satisfactory; the plants they turn out are the most efficient electric lighting apparatus that can be found anywhere. I have sufficient faith in the genius of the Canadian people to believe that they are competent enough to manufacture electrical machinery quite the equal of that made in the United States or anywhere else, and in view of the fact that some of these factories have recently been established it is unfair to reduce the protection which they had been assured they might depend upon. By w7ay of comparison I would call the minister's attention to item 590c,; which deals with engines and complete parts when imported for use only in the equipment of aircraft. At present they are free under the British preference while the other duties are 7-J and 10 per cent. On and after July 1, 1928, they will be 15, 25 and 27i per cent.


James Alexander Robb: Under the British preference they are free until that date. Thereafter the duty goes on.


Donald Sutherland: After that date the manufacturers will be led to believe that they will have a tariff protection of 15, 25 and 27i per cent. But what assurance will they have of any permanency in that tariff? What encouragement is there for people to invest money in such an enterprise in Canada? They have no assurance that this

tariff will be maintained, and that is what is undermining confidence among the people. Let us have some degree of stability. The minister has shown no regard whatever for the sugar beet industry; apparently it makes no difference to him whether we use sugar produced in Canada or sugar made by foreign labour. He thinks he has done enough when he comes to parliament and declares that he is going to provide rural credits legislation to relieve farmers who may be hard up. Surely this is not the principle upon which a sound policy should be based. I have endeavoured time and again to-day to induce the minister to state to the committee precisely on what principle these reductions are based, and what the government's objective is in its tariff legislation. The country is entitled to know just what the government proposes to do. It must have some assurance of tariff stability.


Mr. ROSS (Kingston):: Knowing the minister as I do, I have been very, much surprised to hear the reasons he hag advanced for having been driven to this, that and the other change, but the surprise of the whole evening has been to hear him make the statement that this item had for its object the providing of lights on farms as a means of keeping the farmers' children at home. Bright lights will do the trick. As one who was brought up on a farm, I must say that I have listened to that sort of reasoning so much that I am about sick of it. The idea is preposterous that it was the bright lights of the city or any thing of that kind that attracted me and hundreds and thousands of others from the farm. It is absolute rot. The sons and daughters of farmers have as much brains as the sons and daughters of city people, and if they have taken advantage of their talents and their opportunities to go into other lines of business they have done so because they could not prosper on the farm. Now the farmer, along with other creatures he raises on his farm, rears more children than he can make use of, and many of them consequently are obliged to leave the farm. The minister proposes to retain these people by providing them with bright lights. That is not the idea at all; these are no reasons for the townward trend that has gone on for years. But I will tell you one reason. Agricultural development has taken place in the last sixty or seventy years and there has been a demand for those implements which have made farm work easier. These have been made in the cities and towns, and the farmers' boys in a large way assist in the manufacture of these implements. That is one reason for the townward trend, and it is not because of this lack of bright lights on

the farm, and all that sort of thing. Consequently I want to draw the attention of the hon. member for South Huron (Mr. McMillan) to the fact that if he has a boy on the farm and that boy is a mechanical genius, where is he to apply himself? My hon. friend is going to insist that that boy go to the United States, where thousands have gone for that very reason. We should recognize the fact that these batteries and so on can be made in Canada, and boys from our farms can get employment in these factories instead of going to the United States.


Mr. YOUNG (Weyburn):: Does the hon.
member think he can keep that boy on the farm by keeping him in darkness?


Arthur Edward Ross: If a boy has brains he will use them, whether or not you keep him in darkness. Do not keep him there if he has brains; give him a chance to get ahead, but give him a chance in Canada. We are not only sending our natural resources out of this country, but we are sending after them our most valuable natural resource, our boys and o-irls. Now I want to draw to the attention of the minister the fact that batteries are being made in Canada; men are just beginning to manufacture this electrical equipment, but they are becoming downhearted as they see one thing after another put through this House of Commons to give them less and less opportunity. I have listened to all these ways of keeping the boy on the farm, and I do not believe the minister believes in his heart one word of what he said. I know him well, and it is only trash and nonsense to say that this is going to keep the boy on the farm.


Robert Forke: I have listened to the remarks made in reference to keeping the boy on the farm. When we who live in the country come to the city we recognize the tremendous advantages of city life) 'over country life in the matter of many conveniences. Eight is one, postal service another, and I think our city friends should be very anxious to help those on the farms enjoy some of the conveniences and luxuries ^ of modem civilization. Good light is something which will help keep the boy on the farm. Anyone who has ever lived in the country and who knows what the coal oil lamp means will know how difficult it is to enjoy reading on a winter evening with poor light. They will realize how good light makes country life more attractive. Perhaps I will not be in order, but I would like to give the reason why the boys are leaving the farm. The last speaker said we should not keep the boys on the farm if they had ability for other work, and I quite 14011-230
Ways and Means-Customs Tariff
agree with him. But what is happening all over Canada to-day? I can look back to my old district in Manitoba, where I have lived for over forty years; there I have seen a generation grow up to manhood and womanhood and leave the district. Why?


Mr. RYCKMAN:: To go to the United
States.


Robert Forke: No, Sir; their parents have
lived under great disadvantages and difficulties, and the children have grown up to appreciate this fact. We a,re proud of the fact that education is within the reach of every boy and girl. They go to the common schools, the high schools and the universities and have been educated away from the farm-not because education has done that, but they have learned the disadvantages of agricultural life and will not go back to the farm. I must be careful in what I say, because some people will think I am speaking against education. Education will not take a boy away from a farm if conditions on the farm are Tight. The way to keep the boys and girls on the farm is to make farm life so attractive that the cities will not draw them away. Light, while it may seem trivial, is very important.
I know what it is to sit through a long winter evening trying to read with a poor light, and I know that good light is a prime requisite. We simply ask that electric lighting plants for farms be made and sold as cheaply as they possible can. I would like to repeat what I said in opening; when I come to the city and realize the advantages of electric light,, almost like daylight, and consider the conditions on the average country farm, I think we should be prepared to do something to help those farmers get the very best light possible at the cheapest rates.


Donald Sutherland: I
am sure the country will be pleased with the light we have had on this subject from the hon. member for Brandon (Mr. Forke). He informed the committee this afternoon, when another item was under consideration, what he was capable of doing in the west. Now he is referring to the hardships the people in the country districts have to undergo, and he tells us that the young people, after securing an education, do not find things as attractive on the farm as in the city, and that they desert the farm as a consequence. I could not help but think of the illustration given the House this afternoon by the hon. member for his actions of last year and -this year in regard to the duty on agricultural products. He told us of an old ewe he had on the farm, which produced two lambs, for each

_	COMMONS
ways and Means-Customs Tariff
of which he received $10 without having to feed them anything of consequence. He forgot that there was no duty on wool, which we are getting from Australia, from Ai^entina and other countries- he forgot there was no tariff worth speaking of on meat products as well. I am inclined to think that if the hon. member for Brandon prefers a coal oil lamp on the farm, he is welcome to it, but I can assure him that we have people manufacturing lighting plants in Canada which are not only equal but, I believe, superior to those manufactured in the United States. Has the hon. member for Brandon shown or attempted to show that these plants could not be obtained in this country as cheaply, and of as good quality, as in the United States? I can assure the hon. member for Brandon that we have in the county of Oxford a plant manufacturing an electric lighting equipment which is equal to anything manufactured in any country in the world, and that this plant is likely to be put out of business by the proposed change in the tariff.


Robert Forke: Why?


Donald Sutherland: For the reason that those people have only recently become established and the lame plants in the United States, in order to put them out of business, will very likely for a short time reduce the price of their equipment, and having accomplished their purpose, they wall then raise their price to recoup themselves, as they have done in other cases.
I call the minister's attention to another item on this list which is of a similar character.
I refer to item 590c:
Engines and complete parts thereof, when imported for use only in the equipment of air craft.


William Duff: Order. We are dealing with item 448.


Donald Sutherland: Surely, Mr. Chairman. I am permitted to make a comparison with an article of a very similar nature. I am referring to engines, the assurance is held out that the tariff is going to be increased on those 'things after 1928, it being at present 7i and 10 per cent. The other engine in the lighting plant is subject to a tariff of 27J per cent, which is a reasonable degree of protection, and it has enabled those people to go into business. But here the government comes along and says: After 1928 we are going to put the tariff up on these other things. That is the inducement which is being held out to people to invest their money in an industry of that kind. It is absolutely out of the question because they have no assurance that the government will

show them any consideration. After investing their money the government will probably say to them: You can take your chance with the big industries in the United States, who after having destroyed your business will immediately put up their prices, as they did with barbed wire. We purchased barbed wire cheaper when it was being manufactured in this country than, we have ever been able to do since. The same thing applies all along the line. It is anything with the government to destroy Canadian industry and drive our people across ,the line. That is what the hon. member for Brandon and this government are doing, and to-day the country is suffering more under this government than it has ever suffered before. The government are doing their best to destroy Canadian industrial life.


Mr. MACLEAN (York):: Mr. Chairman,
I am going to tell my hon. friend from Brandon something within my own experience. Within the last few days I met a gentleman who has travelled a good deal both in the United States and in Canada, and he said to me-I have seen something similar in the press-that the greatest advance in economics in the world to-day has been made by the western farmers in pooling their grain and taking over the selling of it, by which they have increased their price. "Now," be says, "if the western farmers will go one step further and pool their buying from industries that will put up great factories in the west for the production of the agricultural implements and other things required by the farmers, it will give .their boys and girls an opportunity to get industrial training in those establishments. That is the next thing the farmers of the west ought to do." I give that idea to my friend from Brandon. There may be some protection in it, but I think its adoption would locate a lot of industries in the west.


Mr. EVANS:: Mr. Chairman, I did not
intend to take part in this debate, but such enoneous ideas have been put forward on this item that it is hard for me to keep my seat. The commodities contained in this item are of great value to the farmer, and it is only fair that he should have them duty free. I cannot help thinking that if the hon. member for South Oxford would only analyze his own statements he would see how contradictory they are. He says that the genius and industry of our workmen are equal to those of any other workmen in the whole world, and that we can make electric lighting equipment here the equal to anything made in the whole universe. Yet he points out that

Ways and Means-Customs Tariff
that equipment is worth less than the material and labour that went into its construction. If it was not so its manufacturers would not need protection. The very idea underlying the need of protection is that the value of the finished article is worth less than the raw material that entered into it. Nobody can deny that. It is an economic law. If it was, as the hon. member says, equal to any similar equipment made in the world it could be sold on its own merits. But there is not a thing that our manufacturers and workmen can touch to-day that would be worth as much finished as in the raw state, according to their plea for protection. That is the strange thing. It has got to be a little tiresome hearing those to the right chiding the member for Brandon, as though he was responsible for all the trouble our cities are enduring to-day.


Henry Lumley Drayton: Mostly.


John Evans: The hon. member has even
accused the Minister of Finance of being twofaced in his argument. Well, all day my friends to the right have been advocating something for the farmer. They have said: "Oh, if we could only give him protection and make life on the farm as it should be." But now they are willing to deny him even a small electric light plant!


Robert James Manion: We would give protection
all round.


John Evans: The two-facedness of the
whole thing is beyond expression. The hon. member says, "Why don't we give protection all round."


Robert James Manion: Hear, hear.


John Evans: He has been advocating that
for two years, but during that time he has never come forward with one idea to show how it can be done. I challenge him to do so to-night. The principle underlying protection is that an industry cannot live and sell its product in competition with the world. How, then, can the farmer pay a high duty on what he needs, amounting in some cases to 35 per cent or more, and then sell his product against all the cheap labour of the whole world? We have to compete against Russia and India, where the people work for a few kopeks or a few annas a day. Is it reasonable, is it fair? Have our people lost all sense of right and British justice and fair play? Why, the thing has become too childish for words.


Robert James Manion: Mr. Chairman, I have been listening the whole evening and rather enjoy-14011-2301
ing the discussion, but the hon. gentleman challenges me so I must give some defence of myself. I always listen to him with the greatest interest, because he is so enthusiastic.
I always notice that what he lacks in logic he supplies in enthusiasm. I say that with no disrespect, for I have the friendliest feeling for him. But he says we are not consistent to-day because we are advocating protection for the farmer and we are also advocating protection for the manufacturer. What is inconsistent in that? I have kept away from the discussion to-night because I thought someone would get up and say exactly what my hon. friend has said. But as a matter of fact the hon. member for South Oxford is absolutely consistent, and he showed his breadth of mind this afternoon by fighting for protection for the farmers and then standing up courageously to fight for protection for the other industries of this country, al-thought a farmer himself. The hon. member for Rosetown says we cannot, or netfer have offered, any original suggestion-I believe that was the way he put it-for giving protection to all classes. Now, I do not pretend to any originality, but I certainly do believe that the people of Canada can protect all classes in this country, with the possible exception- and I have said it many times-of the wheat grower, who has to sell his product in the markets of the world. But the farmers in Ontario and Quebec-and there are two millions of them in these provinces, or about four times as many as there are in the prairie provinces-sell their products to the industrial centres in their neighbourhood to the extent of about ninety per cent.


Mr. McPHEE:: Are there two million farmers in those provinces?


Robert James Manion: Yes; two million farmers
in Ontario and Quebec, and they sell their products to the workers in the industrial centres.


Thomas McMillan: There are only 711,090 occupied farms in the whole of Canada.


Robert James Manion: There are two Vnillion
people living on the farms of those provinces.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: No, no.


Robert James Manion: AVell, there are only about three million people, in round figures, in the three prairie provinces, and quite a number are in the cities, so you can figure out the number for yourselves. I am quite within my estimate, I think, when I say that there are two million people, probably more, in the provinces of Ontario and Quebec living on farms. These people sell about eighty-five to
3624	COMMONS
Ways and Means-Customs Tariff
ninety-five per cent of their products in the industrial centres in their neighbourhood. I submit that you can protect these farmers just the same as the people engaged in any other industry. I will admit that the wheat-farmer at the present time cannot get the benefit of full protection. We do increase his home market to some extent, but we admit we cannot consume all the wheat grown in Canada. On the other hand, the United States-and my hon. friends opposite are always boasting of it-are consuming at home practically all their wheat. It is their home market, because they have had protection for practically seventy-five years.


William Duff: I cannot allow a second budget debate. Shall the item carry?


Donald Sutherland: Before the item carries


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Carried.


Donald Sutherland: No, it is not carried. I should like to assure the minister that this item is one that may well stand for the consideration of the tariff board. These engines have been taken out of the class in which they formerly stood and placed here among a whole lot of other articles. The minister admits that he does not know how many factories are manufacturing them, nor what the output of these factories is. I would ask him to show due consideration for the people who invested the money in their business, and -allow this matter to stand for a little further consideration. That course may well be pursued seeing that the automobile item is to be allowed to stand for some time. If the minister takes the trouble to inquire into this matter he will realize that by what is proposed there is going to be great injustice done to some people who are endeavouring to carry on a legitimate business in this country.


James Alexander Robb: I think we might very well allow the item to go through. That will not prevent any manufacturer who wishes from .going before the tariff board a little later.
-hfr- CHAPLIN (Lincoln): The minister 'was asked a few minutes ago by the hon. member for South Oxford (Mr. Sutherland) why he proposed to put a duty upon engines for aeroplanes two years from now, the same duty he is taking off the engines in the present instance. Why is he encouraging the starting of an industry in the future when he is killing the industry that is already in existence?


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.

Customs tariff-153l. Iron or steel castings in the rough, not further finished than with the burrs removed, when imported by manufacturers of shotguns for use only in the -manufacture of such articles in their own factories, under regulations -prescribed by the Minister of Customs and Excese: British preferential tariff, 5 per cent; intermediate tariff, 7} per cent; general tariff, 10 per cent.
Henry Lumley Drayton: What is the change here?


James Alexander Robb: There is no change. This is a new item. It is represented to us that a Company proposes starting the manufacture of shotguns, and that owing to the limited consumption in Canada it would not be economical for the company to install the high priced machinery necessary to make certain castings.


James Dew Chaplin: How long are you going to keep the duty on?


Mr. KAISER:: This item is one that has
created curiosity from various points of view. In the first place it rather mystifies some people in regard to the attitude of this government, particularly towards industry. Here is an item having reference to shotguns, and a favour is conferred upon manufacturing concerns which have no existence whatever in Canada. I went to the trouble of searching through all kinds -of business diiectories, and having failed to discover any such thing as a shotgun factory in Canada I asked the government whether they had discovered or knew of any such institution. The-government replied that there were none. Now, the facts -of the -case are somewhat to this effect. The general duty on shotguns is thirty per cent, and here we have an item which reduces to ten per -cent the tariff on the parts that enter into the manufacture of shotguns. If these parts came into Canada they would be admitted, I am told by the customs officials, at a rate -of 27J per cent and 25 per cent, but the government is reducing the duty to 10 per cent. This might be the right thing to d-o if we wanted to encourage the manufacture of firearms and shotguns in Canada, but an interesting anomaly presents itself:	While this government is
doing all1 it can -to encourage the manufacture of firearms, a bill has been introduced into the Senate to reduce their use and t-o prevent people fro-m carrying them around. There is no such thing as a shotgun factory in Canada, yet the government- is arranging the -tariff in such a way as t-o bring about the establishment of the industry in this country. And as to a successful Canadian industry which has shown itself capable in

IFaj/s and Means-Customs Tariff
every way of meeting the requirements of the country, the attitude of this government is that such industry must be destroyed. On the other hand the government says with respect to an industry that does not exist in Canada: We must start to build it uip. I claim that this attitude on the part of the government is quite incomprehensible.


William Duff: Order.


Thomas Erlin Kaiser: I am speaking about the
industries of the country, also about shotguns. The chances are that this kind of shotgun will be a double barrelled one, for this reason. With one 'barrel it is blowing up the ordinary duties in Canada, and with the other it is blowing up the British preference. The facts are that there were two concerns selling shotguns in Canada, one American and the other English. The guns of the English company were admitted to Canada at a rate of 20 per cent. The guns of the American firm were dutiable at 30 per cent, so the English company had a 10 per cent advantage over their American rival. However, the agents of the American shotgun firm, by some means or other, obtained the ear of the Canadian government and it is through their efforts, I understand, that the duties have been reduced. I am informed that the American firm has established, or is about, to establish a branch factory at Farnham. in the province of Quebec. That is a good place to start manufacturing, there is no doubt about that. The point I am trying to make is this: while it may be all right for the Canadian governments to encourage the manufacture of goods in Canada, when these manufacturers become successful in attending to the needs of the country we should not. by reducing the tariff, destroy them and force their workmen to leave the country
With reference to the statement of my hon. friend from Rosetown (Mr. Evans), the idea of saying that they are selling their grain-


William Duff: Order.


Thomas Erlin Kaiser: -in the markets of the
world-


William Duff: Order. We cannot have a general discussion of tariff matters on this item; the hon. member is out of order.


Thomas Erlin Kaiser: In regard to this world market, the only thing that is sold in the markets of the world is the surplus that is left over beyond the Canadian requirements. The same thing applies to manufactured goods. After we supply our own market it is the surplus that is sold. We are selling manufactured
goods in the world markets, and we should encourage all our industries to develop to such an extent that they can supply our own wants and sell if possible in the world market. I do not think it is the intention of Canadians to frame a tariff in anticipation of the requirements of prospective industries, while destroying factories that have built up a successful business in Canada.


James Alexander Robb: I did not know until to-night that there was a controversy between British and United States manufacturers in this matter. I gather from the remarks of the hon. member for Ontario that this is put in to meet the wishes of some United States concern, who in some way got the ear of the government. I propose to be frank with the committee and tell them how they got the ear of the government. This item was put in at the request of a lobbyist who came to me from time to time, who camped on my door step for a month, on behalf of the General Motors of Oshawa. The same gentleman who made representations to me on behalf of the General Motors of Oshawa is the gentleman at whose request I have inserted the item. He did not tell me it was an English or a United States concern, but he said there was an industry prepared to open in Canada if we gave them a concession.


Robert James Manion: Was he speaking on behalf of General Motors?


Thomas Erlin Kaiser: Oshawa has been a pioneer in the industrial development of this country. On very many occasions we have opened up industries, only to see them destroyed. I say that while we should encourage industries that are just starting we certainly should not try to destroy industries that already exist.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-460e. Belt and cap lamps and parts thereof to be used exclusively in a mine; parts of miners' safety lamps, n.o.p.: British preferential tariff, free; intermediate tariff, free; general tariff, free.
James Alexander Robb: Before any hon. member rises to protest against this item, hon. members will notice we are dropping from 20, 27 and 30, or 15, 25 and 271, to free. I wish to say this item was put in at the request of the hon. member for York-Sunbury.


Donald Sutherland: Would the minister state that this lobbyist who has been around here is responsible for the change in the tariff in regard to equipment for electrical plants?


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
[Stage Direction]
Ways and Means-Customs Tariff
Customs tariff-469b. Machinery and apparatus and parts thereof for use only in producing unrefined oil or fertilizer from shales, not to include motive power of a class or kind made in Canada: British preferential tariff, free; intermediate tariff, free; general tariff, free.
Ernest Frederick Armstrong: Will the minister allow this to stand? This is an item dealing with the question of the production of crude oil, and I have a great many questions to ask.


James Alexander Robb: Very well.
Item stands.


Ambrose Upton Gledstanes Bury: What is the idea of adding that statement, "on and after 1st July, 1928?"


James Alexander Robb: They are free, 7i and 10 per
cent; on and after July, 1928, they will be 15, 25 and 27i per cent.


Ambrose Upton Gledstanes Bury: Is it customary for governments to assume they will be in office at some future time?


James Alexander Robb: They claim they will be able to improve on the engine in Canada, and we think we should give them a reasonable time.
Customs tariff-502d. Gun stocks and fore-ends for shot guns, of walnut in the rough, not further manufactured than bored and channelled, when imported by manufacturers of shot guns for use only in the manufacture of shot guns in their own factories: British preferential tariff, 10 per cent; intermediate tariff, 12A per cent; general tariff, 15 per cent.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-590a. Aero-planes and other aircraft and complete parts thereof, n.o.p., under regulations described by the Minister of Customs and Excise: British preferential tariff, 15 per cent; intermediate tariff, 25 per cent; general tariff, 27£ per cent.
Henry Lumley Drayton: What is the
.change there?


James Alexander Robb: The letters "n.o.p." are added, that is the only change.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-590c. Engines and complete parts thereof, when imported for use only in the equipment of aircraft: British preferential tariff, free; intermediate tariff, 7£ per cent; general tariff, 10 per cent.
On and after 1st July, 1928: British preferential tariff, 15 per cent; intermediate tariff, 25 per cent; general tariff, 27£ per cent.
James Dew Chaplin: I asked a question about that item a few minutes ago. Can the minister give me the information now?


James Alexander Robb: It has been represented to us there is a considerable demand developing for aircraft and that there is not a suitable engine made in Canada. Representatives from British Columbia, from Quebec, and one from Hamilton pointed out that the business of manufacturing aircraft was considerably hampered by the fact that they could not get a suitable engine in Canada, and they argued that we should give them this concession. We said we would let. them have it until 1928.


James Dew Chaplin: This item says, "and complete parts thereof."


James Alexander Robb: That is, complete parts of the engine when imported for use only, in the equipment of aircraft.


James Dew Chaplin: Perhaps hon.
gentlemen think another government will be in power and this provision will then be more in line with their policy.


James Alexander Robb: I should not like to encourage the hon. member to believe that another government would be in power too soon.


Donald Sutherland: The minister stated there was considerable demand for aircraft. There is also a considerable demand for lighting machinery in regard to which we have just passed an item. The minister slashed that item. Now he believes there is going to be an inducement offered to go into the manufacture of aircraft engines. The attitude of the government is on record, and hon. gentlemen can rest assured that if the present government is in office no one will pay any attention to the item we are now considering, because they would at once slash the duty on engines.


James Alexander Robb: We are encouraging the building of aircraft in Canada. If we did not give them this protection they would not build them.


Mr. BROWN:: What was the duty on these articles before?


James Alexander Robb: The duty was 271 per cent,
25 per cent and 15 per cent.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-626a. Men's and boy's hats made of hatters' felt in the rough, not blocked or further finished, when imported by manufacturers of men's and boy's hats for use only in the manufacture of such liat3 in their own factories: British preferential tariff, 15 per cent; intermediate tariff, 20 per cent; general tariff, 25 per cent.
James Alexander Robb: I have an amendment to this item. As amended the item will read:
Customs tariff-626a. Men's and -boy's hats made of wool, felt in the rough, not dyed, not blocked or further finished, when imported by manufacturers of

Australian Treaty
men's and boy's hats for use only in the manufacture of such hats in their own factories: British preferential tariff, 15 per cent; intermediate tariff, 20 per cent; general tariff, 25 per cent.
The present rate is 22J, 30 and 35 per cent. The reason for the proposed change is that the hat bodies are manufactured principally in Italy and other countries. The British manufacturer can import the hat bodies and further manufacture them and ship to Canada, where they can be imported under the preferential tariff at 20J per cent, while the Canadian manufacturer has to pay 30 to 35 per cent for his raw material, being at a disadvantage of Of or 14f per cent with his finished hat. It places the manufacturer in a better position.


Henry Lumley Drayton: I have some recollection of the matter. The minister says it puts the manufacturer in a better position. That means some manufacturers are put in a better position and some in a worse position. The manufacture of these parts was going on in the country, but I observe a change has been made. It has been made to-night as I heard it read for the first time, and it would look as if the effect would be to help some manufacturers and to hurt others, but it is going to be changed in such a way as not to do the others much harm.


Hugh Alexander Stewart: What will be the figures in the amendment?


James Alexander Robb: The same figures. I think this will provide for the industry my hon. friend has in mind.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-664b. Ethylene glycol, when imported by manufacturers of explosives, for use only in the manufacture of such articles in their own factories: British preferential tariff, free; intermediate tariff, free; general tariff, free.
James Alexander Robb: The present rates are 171, 171 and 15. There is no separate classification of imports. Ethylene glycol is not manufactured in Canada and there is practically no possibility of that being done, as the consumption is not large and a plant to manufacture it would cost $500,000. It is imported for the manufacture of explosives.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-680a. Sponges of marine production: British preferential tariff, free; intermediate tariff, 17J per cent; general tariff, 17i per cent.
Henry Lumley Drayton: What is the
change there?


James Alexander Robb: This is under the West India agreement. The tariff is reduced from 121 per cent to free under the British preference.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Henry Lumley Drayton: I think we should adjourn now.


James Alexander Robb: Yes. I agreed to leave certain items for consideration when the leader of the opposition was here.


Ernest Frederick Armstrong: When may we expect to take these items up again?


James Alexander Robb: To-morrow.
Progress reported.
On motion of Mr. Mackenzie King, the House adjourned at 11.45 p.m.
Friday, May 21, 1926