1926-04-27

PRINTING OF PARLIAMENT

Right Hon. W. L. MACKENZIE KING (Prime Minister) moved:: That a message be sent to the Senate to acquaint Their Honours that this House has substituted the name of Mr. Elliott for that of Mr. Prevost on the joint committee of both houses on the Printing of Parliament, and that the Clerk of the House do carry the said message to the Senate.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.


Mr. SPEAKER:: I have the honour to inform the House that a bust of Lord Durham has been presented to the Dominion of Canada by Mr. John St. Loe Strachey, of London, England, and has been received in Ottawa to-day. It will be installed somewhere in the House of Commons this afternoon.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: In connection with the announcement which Your Honour has just made, I am sure I voice the feeling of hon. members of this House when I say that we all deeply appreciate the generous gift which has been made by Mr. Strachey and should be glad if Your Honour would express to him the thanks of this House.


Right Hon. ARTHUR MEIGHEN (Leader of the Opposition):: The fact of the gift has been brought to my attention only in the words of Your Honour. I have no hesitation whatever in adding my request to that of the Prime Minister although I should like to have been favoured with more information regarding the gift itself and whatever letter or communication may have accompanied it.


Hewitt Bostock: I shall convey the thanks of the House to Mr. Strachey and at the next sitting give the information asked for by the leader of the opposition.



ELECTION OFFICIALS IN ATHABASCA

Hewitt Bostock: I have the honour to inform the House that I have received from the Chief Electoral Officer copies of correspondence, letters, telegrams and other documents between the Chief Electoral Officer and any other person or persons relating to the payment of election officials in the constituency of Athabasca.



THE GOVERNOR GENERALSHIP

[Stage Direction]
On the Orders of the Day:
Mr. A. TV. NEILL (Comox-Alberni): Before the orders of the day are called I desire to direct the attention of the government to a newspaper report and to ask a couple of simple questions in connection therewith. The matter is of such public importance and urgent interest at the present moment that I almost feel tempted to move the adjournment of the House in order that it may be debated, but it can be dealt with in this manner. The report to which I have reference appears in the Montreal Gazette of Saturday last. It discusses the prospective Governors General whose names are being mooted, and appears to have all the earmarks of authenticity. The article is:
Special from the Gazette's resident staff correspondent by wireless registered in accordance with Copyright Act.
I shall not read the whole of it but the following three or four lines are decidedly of interest:
Meighen's name curiously enough was among those* recently mentioned in two London newspapers as a likely successor of Lord Byng.
I want to ask two questions:	Is the
Meighen there referred to the right hon. gentleman who so ably fills the office of leader of the opposition? Secondly, if there is any truth in that rumour will it have the sympathetic support of the government, and, if not, why not?
William Lyon Mackenzie King: I am quite sure that the
name mentioned must refer to my right hon. friend (Mr. Meighen). I had always understood that he had other aspirations, but if he has not and is really seriously considering the position it will be a pleasure for the government to confer with him on the subject.


Arthur Meighen: I do not know what may be the prevalent opinion in the country from which the despatch comes, but this country spoke its mind on October 29 last and assigned to me another task.
283S
Sumas Landowners Petition



CLEMENCY FOR PRINCE ALBERT PRISONERS

[Stage Direction]
On the Orders of the Day:
Mr. E. J. GARLAND (Bow River):: Two or three days ago I directed the attention of the Minister of Justice (Mr. Lapointe) to a petition which had been presented to the Department of Justice, signed by 3,500 persons, asking for clemency in the case of two prisoners now in Prince Albert, Cecil Terriss and Lewis MacDonald, who were convicted as a result of the strike that occurred last year. Has the Minister of Justice considered the petition and, if so, what possible action may be expected in the matter?


Hon. ERNEST LAPOINTE (Minister of Justice):: I have received the petition and I
may assure my hon. friend that it will be given due consideration.



PETITION FROM SUMAS LANDOWNERS

[Stage Direction]
On the Orders of the Day:
Mr. HARRY J. BARBER (Fraser Valley): I desire to ask the Minister of Justice a question based upon the following article which appears in the Vancouver Daily Province of April 21:
Sumas landowners have forwarded a petition to Ottawa asking that certain provincial legislation be disallowed. The act to which they object is one passed at the last session of the legislature which validates all actions of the dyking commissioners and stipulates that the assessment roll "shall not be quashed or set aside or the validity thereof otherwise questioned on any ground whatsoever."
Numerous property owners affected by the reclamation work are reported to have signed the petition. They attacked the assessment roll last year, asked for the accounting and alleged that the Land Settlement Board, as dyking commissioners, "illegally, negligently, recklessly, wrongfully and without authority and in breach of their duties as commissioners spent *large sums of money in constructing works within the Sumas dyking district."
Their action in petitioning Ottawa goes back to Magna Charta for precedent, it being a principle of the British constitution that any subject may approach the king. Provincial legislation, it is claimed, removed any right of Sumas property owners affected by reclamation works to redress in the courts. It is upon *this that they are asking for the disallowance of the legislation, claiming that the legislation complained of is ultra vires.
I would ask the Minister of Justice if this petition has been received; if so, will he have the correspondence laid on the table, and has he reached any decision in the matter?
Ernest Lapointe: Mr. Speaker, I can assure my hon. friend that no decision has been reached. I will make the necessary inquiry and give him information to-morrow as to whether the petition has been received. If it is for the disallowance of an act of the legislature, of
fMr. Meighen.]
course it will have to be considered by the Governor in Council, and I do not know whether these documents could be tabled before such action is taken on them. However, I will make the necessary inquiry.


Mr. STEVENS:: Just following what my
hon. friend has said, unless there is some constitutional objection, may we expect these documents to be laid on the table?


Ernest Lapointe: Certainly.



THE BUDGET


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed from Monday, April 26, the debate on the motion of Hon. J. A. Robb (Minister of Finance) that Mr. Speaker do now leave the chair for the House to go into committee of Wajrs and Means, and the proposed amendment thereto of Hon. R. J. Manion.
Hon. J. H. KING (Kootenay, Minister of Public Works):: 
Mr. MANION:: May I ask my hon. friend,
who on this side ever argued that it is bad to have an excess of exports over imports?


Mr. KING (Kootenay):: I have heard that argument advanced on several occasions by hon. gentlemen opposite.


Robert James Manion: Never.


John Warwick King: Just wait a
moment. I have heard it argued by my hon. friends opposite that we should not sell our raw materials.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Hear, hear.


Mr KING (Kootenay):: We will get to
that later.


Arthur Meighen: Get to it now.


John Warwick King: Certainly we are
selling raw materials. What nation does not? We are selling our wheat and our flour in the markets of the world. The United States sells her cotton and her oil in the markets of the world; and certainly crude oil is a raw product. So we are doing what every other nation is doing, we are exporting the excess of our raw materials that cannot be manufactured and sold at home; and no one will question the wisdom of that policy.


Arthur Meighen: Could the minister tell
us what proportion of our exports is raw material, and what proportion of United States exports is raw material?


John Warwick King: It^would not be difficult to find that information.


Arthur Meighen: I have it. That would
be very appropriate to give the House now.


John Warwick King: You can do it at the proper time, but not just now.


Arthur Meighen: I will.


John Warwick King: In following my
argument, Mr. Speaker, I wish to be very brief. When one hears the statement that Canada is being flooded with foreign goods, it would seem well to consider the trade between Canada and . the various countries of the world, to see how our trade has progressed during the last ten years. In 1914 our imports from Great Britain amounted to $132,070,408; in 1924, they totalled $153,586,690. Our exports in 1914 were $222,322,292 and in 1924, $361,160,802. I do not propose to deal with all the various nations, but I do wish to consider the trade between Canada and the United States. In 1914 we imported from the LTnited States $396,302,138 worth of goods; in 1924, our imports amounted to $601,256,417. In 1914 we exported to the United States goods to the value of $176.948,299; in 1924, our exports amounted to $441,642,909. We have heard a great deal about the unfavourable trade balance with the United States. If hon. gentlemen opposite look at these figures they will see that during the last few years there has been an equalization in that trade. I have given the figures for 1924, and the figures for 1925, if given, would show' an even more favourable condition.
We have heard a great deal regarding our trade with France; hon. members opposite have criticized from time to time the trade treaty entered into by Canada and France. Let us look at trade conditions as they
2840	COMMONS
The Budget-Mr. King (Kootenay)
existed in 1914 between France and Canada, and then consider them in 1924. In 1914 our imports from France amounted to $14,276,535; in 1924 our imports totalled $15,767,851. In 1914 we exported to France goods to the value of $3,632,444, and in 1924 our exports amounted to $18,879,097. In 1914 there was a balance of a million dollars against us, but in 1924 the balance of trade was some $15,000,000 in our favour.


Mr. STEWART (Leeds):: Would the minister please tell us when the change took place?


John Warwick King: It is taking place every day. We are selling to France more than ever.


Hugh Alexander Stewart: Has the change been gradual,, or has it come within the last two or three years?


John Warwick King: My hon. friend
will understand that I am taking these two periods, the year before the war and some years after. I am not complicating these statistics with war periods, because I do not think that, would be fair or proper. We are now some seven or eight years away from the war, and we can make a comparison of conditions as they are now with those existing before the war.


Hugh Alexander Stewart: Would the minister give us the figures for the period just before the treaty was negotiated, and for the period immediately afterwards?


John Warwick King: That will be
shown later; it has been shown in this House on a number of occasions, and I am not dealing with it to-day.


Mr. SUTHERLAND (South Oxford):: Would the minister give us the balance of trade for the year before the treaty went into effect and for the last year, which would be a fair comparison?


John Warwick King: I do not think
my hon. friend could have heard me. I stated that I kept the accounting to the year before the war and to 1924, some years following the war. I do not wish to prolong the discussion; I am trying to show that during that ten year period, following a time of great stress during which this country acquired new obligations, we emerged with a favourable trade balance which was not enjoyed in 1914.


Donald Sutherland: Might I ask the minister if it would not be more fair to give the year immediately before the treaty went into effect, and the last year?


John Warwick King: I do not think
that is necessary for the purposes of my argument. My hon. friend has discussed the French treaty from time to time, not always on the basis of the treaty; he has placed his own interpretation on it. These figures are chosen for the purposes of this argument, which I hope will be of some benefit to my hon. friends opposite, who from time to time during the last three or four years have made it their business to go up and down this country informing the people that our business was not improving; that conditions were not healthy, and that Canada was on the verge of bankruptcy. I hope to dispel that feeling not only in this House but throughout the country. If the figures I have, which are reliable, are known to the Canadian people, I am satisfied that all sign of despair will disappear and that the optimism with which the budget has been received will be considerably strengthened.
Japan is a country with which we have a considerable trade. In 1914 our imports from Japan amounted to $2,604,216; in 1924 they amounted to $6,298,201. Our exports in 1914 totalled $1,587,467, while in 1924 they amounted to $26,991,860. The same thing applies to China; the trade balance ha3 changed in our favour.


Mr. McQUARRIE:: Might I ask a question? What did those exports consist of?


John Warwick King: Many articles
made in Canada. Our Canadian manufacturers are entering the Japanese field. Wheat played a very large part in this favourable balance, but our merchants and our cattle producers in western Canada are also shipping their products into the Japanese market with marked success.


William Garland McQuarrie: Of that total, what
proportion is composed of manufactured
goods?


John Warwick King: I am not an
encyclopaedia. The information requested by my hon. friend can be easily secured; if I were to speak to-morrow I would secure that information for him. We do know that during the last ten years our trade with Japan has expanded until now, instead of the unfavourable balance which existed in 1914, we have a very favourable balance as shown by the figures I have just given.


William Garland McQuarrie: Our exports consisted largely of raw materials.


Mr. STEWART (Edmonton):: Rot.


William Garland McQuarrie: Is that so, or is it
not?

The Budget-Mr. King (Kootenay)


Charles A. Stewart: No, of course it is not.


John Warwick King: As I told my hon. friend, a large amount of wheat has been exported to Japan, which might be called raw material. Possibly it would be advantageous to the Canadian people to make that wheat into flour, but it is no more raw material than is cotton in the United States.


William Garland McQuarrie: Would my hon. friend
consider logs in the same way?


John Warwick King: I am not talking
about logs. I think my hon. friend would like to do some log rolling.


Hewitt Bostock: Might I suggest to hon.
members on both sides of the House that they do not interrupt the speakers.


John Warwick King: 
Mr. CLARK:: As I have been quoted, Mr. Speaker, may I rise to a question of privilege? The day following that report I made the statement in the presence of the press, representing three newspapers, that there was not one tittle of truth in the statement which my hon. friend is reading. I made no such statement as has been quoted.


John Warwick King: Nothing could
give me greater pleasure than to hear that statement from my hon. friend. He was generally reported throughout the press in British Columbia as having made a statement of that character, and knowing the gloomy attitude which he takes of things as they exist in Canada to-day, one could very well assume that that statement represented his attitude.


John Arthur Clark: Mr. Speaker, I rise to a
question of privilege.


Hewitt Bostock: The Minister of Public
Works accepts, as he is bound to do, the word of the hon. member for Vancouver-Burrard


John Warwick King: I not only accepted it, but said that it gave me great pleasure to accept it.
2S42
The Budget-Mr. COMMONS
King (Kootenay)


John Arthur Clark: I rise to a point of order,
Mr. Speaker. The hon. Minister of Public Works is commenting on a statement attributed to me in the public press, which statement I have denied. Now I want to state, Mr. Speaker, that the statement I did make was this-


John Warwick King: I think I have the floor, Mr. Speaker, and I will retain the floor till I am through. My hon. friend has already spoken in this debate.


John Arthur Clark: May I say-


Hewitt Bostock: Order.


John Arthur Clark: I am rising-


Hewitt Bostock: Sit down, please. The
hon. member for Vancouver-Burrard rose to deny the statement attributed to him in the press despatch which the hon. Minister of Public Works was reading. The hon. Minister of Public Works then rose and did accept the hon. member's statement immediately, but he was proceeding to make an explanation when the hon. member for Vancouver-Burrard rose again to make another denial. The hon. member has already denied in toto the statement attributed to him in the press, and the hon. Minister of Public Works, as every member of the House must do, has accepted his word.


John Arthur Clark: May I state, Mr. Speaker-


Hewitt Bostock: Not unless it is another
point of order.


John Arthur Clark: I am just asking a question, Mr. Speaker. May I state, as a matter of privilege, what I did say on that occasion?


Hewitt Bostock: No, because it would be against the rules.


John Warwick King: As I have said,
I am delighted to have my hon. friend deny that statement. No one more readily accepts his denial than myself because I could not believe, in fact, I know that the conditions in British Columbia do not warrant that statement. I hold in my hand a statement that was published in the Vancouver Province, a paper not a supporter of this government, but an excellent paper that tries to present and does give to the people of British Columbia in a general way the news of the day. In its issue of April 11, 1926, it says:
to,000,000 building outlay for first quarter, 1926: $7,250,000 locally subscribed for British Columbia Electric loan. British Columbia Electric Bpending $30,000,000 in development. $160,000,000 British Columbia Electric payroll.
If I may be allowed an interjection here, it is with some satisfaction that I note our

present industrial payroll in British Columbia is $160,000,000, because on looking back to the year 1922, I find that the industrial payroll of British Columbia was then $120,000,000. It goes on:
Vancouver regular port of call for 42 steamship
lines. 916 ships entered Vancouver harbour in 1925.
That is an inspiring statement, one that will do much to inspire the people of British Columbia, and I believe that if the people of eastern Canada would take advantage of conditions as they exist to-day and set fairly before the people of Canada those conditions, there would be more optimism and less pessimism than we have to-day, and it would be to the advantage of Canada as a whole.
When the Minister of Finance brought down his budget the other day the hon. member for South Wellington (Mr. Guthrie), owing to the illness of the hon. member for West York (Sir Henry Drayton), replied on behalf of the opposition. I think we all admired the ease with which the hon. gentleman spoke, and the manner in which he developed his reply. He accepted the good things in the budget, the reductions in taxation, as being all right. Then he placed on Hansard certain figures, but those figures- whether due to lack of time in preparation or lack of opportunity for verification on his part-will stand examination and should be examined and discussed here. The hon. gentleman caused it to be inferred that this government had by means of the reduction in the British preference placed the woollen industry in a precarious condition in Canada. This is what he said:
In the first year two and a half per cent was taken off the duty on woollen goods. The Laurier-Fielding tariff had served the country, so well, that had kept the mills so busy, was tinkered with in the first year and reduced to 27) per cent. In the following year there was another cut of ten per cent in the British preferential bringing the tariff on woollens down from 27) per cent to 24.8 per cent net, and what was the result? All over Canada woollen mills began to close; men lost their jobs, the exodus started to the United States and woollen men would not invest more money. I say to the Minister of Finance: Look at your imports of woollens for those years. See them gradually rising in this country until last year, according to the government's trade returns of which I have a copy in my hand, we brought in $20,000,000 worth of woollen goods from Great Britain, all of wh:eh we could have made in Canadian mills if the Prime Minister had had resolution and courage enough to stand by the tariff which he helped to make in 1007.
Now, let us look at the woollen industry and see what has happened. In 1921 our total importation of dutiable woollen goods from Great Britain amounted to $45,795,573.
In 1922 we imported $22,895,016 worth; in

The Budget-Mr. King (Kootenay)
1923, $31,298,216 worth; in 1924, $30,447,895 worth; and in 1925, $30,283,675 worth. Now it may be that the importation of $20,000,000 to which the hon. gentleman referred had reference only to certain woollens. The figures I have given, however, cover the total importations of woollen goods from Great Britain. It will be noted that in 1921, owing to conditions that existed in Canada after the war-I wish to be fair-and before any tariff changes had taken place we imported $45,795,000 worth of woollen goods. In 1925, the importation had dropped to $30,283,000 worth. However, I wish to go on and follow the matter a little further. We have a great woollen industry in Canada known as Penman's Limited. This firm manufactures woollen garments and is a really great organization. We find that in 1921 they manufactured woollen goods to the extent of $4,789,053. In 1925, the amount had risen to $6,431,153. Apparently the Penman's are enjoying to-day a larger amount of business, at least their sales are greater, than in 1921 by almost $2,000,000. Now, if you go back and take the importation of $45,000,000 odd in 1921 as against $30,000,000 odd in 1925 you must go beyond the tariff changes to find the explanation for the diminution. The explanation must be found in some other cause because we find a decline in the sale of woollens in the United States. In that country, which our Conservative friends would lead the people to believe is not only the most highly protected but the most prosperous country in the world, no industry, they say, goes out of business because the government immediately comes to its rescue. Now, what do we find in the United States? In 1923 the average monthly consumption of woollens amounted to 53,467.000 pounds, whereas in 1925 it had dropped to 43,857,000 pounds. What, is the reason for that? It is not because there was not a tariff. We know, every man knows that in his own home to-day, woollen goods are not being used to the extent that they were used years ago:	They are being replaced by goods
that are made from a mixture of wool, cotton, silk, and artificial silk. The result is that to-day the woollen industry, not only in Canada but throughout the world, is obliged to adjust itself to new conditions.
But I should like to deal for a moment with a further statement made by my hon. friend, as follows:
"I am witling to stand by my statement. Cultivators in the days of the Lauriei-Fielding tariff, when the present Prime Minister was a member of the government of that day and supported the tariff in that government, enjoyed a duty of 17i per cent. This government has cut the duty down now to 7J per
cent. No wonder that the trade has been almost abandoned in this country and our farmers are very largely being supplied with goods from the United States."
Now, Mr. Speaker, I contend that that statement does not correctly represent the condition as far as the manufacturer of agricultural implements in this country is concerned. We find that in 1922 the people of Canada imported binders amounting to $319807 in value. In 1925 they imported $216,427 worth. The hon. member for South Wellington did not refer to reapers, but I shall give the figures for that branch of the industry also. In 1922 we imported 6,805 reapers, and in 1925 reapers to the number of 198. In 1922 we bought $36,143 worth of mowers, and in 1925 mowers amounting in value to $27,930. We will now see what the export business by the manufacturers of agricultural implements amounted to in those years. In 1922 we exported $449,013 worth of binders. In 1925 the export amounted to $1,220,000 worth. In 1922, we exported reapers to a total amount of $12,901 worth, and in 1925 the value of the export of reapers was $105,893 worth. Of mowers in 1922 we exported $369,762 worth, and in 1925, a value of $957,695, showing that during that period the agricultural implement men had improved their position in the matter of export and had conserved the home market to a greater extent. Now as to the plow industry which was said to be ruined:	In 1922,
we imported $554,846 worth of plows, and in 1925, plows to the amount of $613,998. In 1922, the export, of plows amounted to $1,465,919 worth, and in 1925 we exported $1,630,908 worth, showing a favourable condition as regards exports and also as regards the home market.
Now let us take the total trade in agricultural implements. The total importations in 1921 amounted to $24,317,190 worth, and the exports to $12,527,000. In 1925 we imported only $6,428,000 worth. We sold $11,342,000 worth. There is no question with regard to the manufacture of agricultural implements. We were told in 1924 the reduction the government then made would destroy that industry. We know that to-day the Massey-Harris stock is selling for more than it was previous to that date. We know that many of the factories in this country are enjoying great prosperity, and we know from the trade returns that the change has not seriously affected the agricultural implement industry.
I have stated that this budget is appreciated by the Canadian people. It is a budget that goes into every home in this country. My

The Budget-Mr. King (Kootenay)
hon. friend the former Solicitor General (Mr. Guthrie), complained the other day that the government's budget was two or three years too late. He overlooked the fact that in 1924 this government had a surplus of many millions of dollars, and at that time, brought about by reduction in customs duties and sales taxes, the government contributed some $20,000,000 odd to the relief of the Canadian taxpayer. That should not be overlooked, and when my hon. friend claims that the delay had been too great he did not give consideration to the fact that this government in 1924 did make reductions in taxation amounting to something over $20,000,000 or $25,000,000. A reduction in sales taxes will always be acceptable to the Canadian people, and it is the desire of the government, and I think ot the people of Canada, that we be relieved of that burden as early as possible. It is true that the sales tax is a convenient way of raising revenue. We are. told that this government had increased the sales tax from two and a half to six per cent, but if hon. members will go back to the period of 1923 and 1924, and read Mr. Fielding's statement on the sales tax, they will realize that the sales tax as administered by the late government did not bring revenue, because it was not collectable, and where it was collected it had pyramided itself. It has been found that the amendments made by Mr. Fielding have been effective in securing revenue, and it has been the policy of this government, when conditions permitted in the country, to reduce that tax on these commodities that would first give relief to the people in the homes of this country.
The reduction in postage will certainly not *be criticized. I think the Canadian people are to be congratulated that we are to go back to the day of penny postage, and as the hon. member for Bonaventure (Mr. Marcil) said the other day, the Canadian people being the first to introduce penny postage, would come back again to thit period with great gratification and pleasure.
The abolition of the receipt tax will give to the merchant and to the individual who is buying or selling relief from what has been termed a nuisance. It was not a large revenue producer, and the government, as the minister has said, considered it wise to abolish that tax. I am satisfied that the change will be acceptable to the people of Canada. The reduction in income tax has given general satisfaction to those who have been paying the tax.
I have listened for the last week to discussion on the budget as occasion permitted me, and generally speak in =* from the opposite

side of the House the argument has not been greatly against the budget as introduced by the minister. Exception however has been taken to the reduction in the automobile tax and it was on that score that the 4 p.m hon. member for Fort William (Mr. Manion) moved his amendment a few days ago, stating that the government should not have made the reduction in the automobile tax without referring this matter to the tariff board. One would think, after hearing hon. gentlemen opposite, that this was a new thing in the public mind of Canada. I cannot conceive that members who were in the last parliament who heard the debate and witnessed the vote in that parliament could have been deceived as to the minds of the Canadian public representatives in this parliament in the matter of automobile taxation, because last year, when the resolution was introduced by the hon. member for Macleod, (Mr. Coote), we found members from every group in the House supporting the proposed reduction. The government would have been remiss if, after that debate and that vote, they had not given very careful and thorough consideration to the question of reduction of duties on automobiles. It may be convenient for hon. members opposite to say that this question should not have been dealt with by parliament but should have been referred to the tariff commission, but that course would not have satisfied the majority in parliament or the majority of the people of Canada, because conditions had arrived in connection with the manufacture of automobiles that required adjustment. I claim that the government have acted wisely and properly in the matter. It is true that some men will, as the ostrich does, place their heads in the sand so that they will not see what is coming, but any business man engaged in the industry of manufacturing automobiles, after hearing the debate in this House, should have realized that, in the public mind throughout Canada, there was a feeling that the day had arrived when there should be an adjustment in the duties on automobiles. So that we cannot, Mr. Speaker, take too seriously our hon. friends opposite. I have heard only one hon. member-and this my hon. friend from Burrard (Mr. Clark) will not deny-on the Conservative side state in his place that if his party were returned to power he would vote for and see that there was a return to the former duty.


John Arthur Clark: What else?


John Warwick King: That is the statement my hon. friend made. If he wishes to add to it he can do so now or later.

The Budget-Mr. King (Kootenay)


John Arthur Clark: He did add to it and said that he would " refer it to the tariff commission."


John Warwick King: I know that, but as far as he was concerned he was prepared to see that the duties were restored to the former basis.


John Arthur Clark: Yes, and the pledge carried out.


John Warwick King: Let us for a moment or two go a little further into this matter of tariff. It is true that in 1924 this government did reduce the tariff on agricultural implements. It was considered a very large reduction. We were told that the industry would be destroyed. It has not been destroyed, but for the purpose of this occasion and argument, I have tried to familiarize myself with what occurred when a similar condition arose in this parliament. In 1911 the leader of the opposition was returned to parliament and at that time he moved as an amendment to the budget:
That in the opinion o-f this House, a substantial reduction in the 'import duties on agricultural implements is now due the agriculturists of Canada, and is in just accord with the true ends of a protective tariff.
It is interesting to read the remarks of the right hon. gentleman made at that time, when although he was much younger than he is now he had the same faculty for acute reasoning and getting at his point. His argument on that occasion was that, the agricultural implement industry having pretty well secured the home market in Canada and having ventured into foreign fields, the time had come when there should be substantial reductions in duty. It is rather a remarkable coincidence that the agricultural implement industry at that time enjoyed a duty of 35 per cent, and the leader of the opposition evidently came to the same conclusion then as this government has arrived at in respect of the automobile industry. The reduction then was from 35 to 20 per cent.


Mr. EDWARDS (Frontenac):: Does the
minister say that the duty on agricultural implements in 1911 was 35 per cent?


John Warwick King: I understand so.


John Wesley Edwards: The minister is absolutely wrong.


John Warwick King: Probably it had been reduced, but the leader of the opposition was referring to the period preceding 1896. The duty on agricultural implements had been 35 per cent and the Liberal party
were asking for a reduction. To substantiate his case the leader of the opposition quoted Sir George Foster, who at that time was Minister of Finance:
The reduction in agricultural implements from 35 per cent to 20 per cent is one under which it would tax the ingenuity of the manufacturers to keep the field against what is now keen competition especially in the northwest.
Commenting on that quotation he said:
Thus did he postulate that the test by which these duties were to be judged, the guide by which he was to be governed, was such a duty as, ait the narrowest point, would test the ingenuity of the manufacturers to keep the field against foreign competition.
He quoted Sir George Foster further:
Our industries have not yet overtaken the home consumption of the people, but are gradually growing up to the point of meeting the consumptive demand of the country.
Later on, in order to lay down another guiding principle, he quoted the Hon. John Haggart as stating:
That they believe that our people can compete with less protection than formerly and to prove that it can be pointed out that we are now sending agricultural implements to many portions of the world.
The right hon. gentleman continued:
Now, sir, what are the manufacturers of agricultural implements enabled to do They are able under this tariff to exact a higher price than they could exact if the tariff were lower. I do not say that a reduction will to any very enoimous extent affect the price; I believe it will materially, and I think it will render some relief to particularly the farmers of the west. It will afford some relief to them and I believe it is the bounden duty of the government to so afford it


John Wesley Edwards: The duty
on agricultural implements in 1911 was 17i per cent and it was reduced in 1914 to 124 per cent.


John Warwick King: I corrected myself. As I said, the leader of the opposition was quoting arguments that had been used by Sir George Foster when he was Minister of Finance, Sir George having pointed out that prior to 1896 there had been a reduction from 35 to 20 per cent. The leader of the opposition in the debate to which I refer enunciated certain guiding principles. He laid down three basic principles: First, that a duty must never be higher than is sufficient at the narrowest point to test the ingenuity of the manufacturers to meet the keenest possible competition. That is good reasoning, and it was advanced by the right hon. gentleman at that time as an argument in favour of his proposed reduction in duties. Secondly, that the duty must be maintained not until the Canadian industry has overtaken the whole consumption, but only until the indus-
2346	COMMONS
7'he Budget-Mr. King (Kootenay)
try is gradually growing up to the point of meeting the consumption demand of the country.
He was not suggesting that the industry should saturate the home market before the duty was reduced but that it should only partially cover the market. Thirdly, that the moment the home industry is able to export its products into foreign markets, that moment the duty should be taken off or at least materially decreased.
In view of the foregoing arguments surely we have arrived in Canada at the point where substantial reductions in the duties on automobiles should be made, especially when we know that last year the manufacturers exported from 40 to 42 per cent of their output. I do not think therefore that we need be disturbed by the activity of some motor dealers and manufacturers in this country, who on the day the budget came down closeted themselves in their offices and without notifying their employees had notices prepared and posted on their doors next morning informing the public and employees that their plant had been closed until they could ascertain just what the budget meant. Now that meant no expense to the manufacturers, but the two or three days during which the plant was closed down the employees suffered in the matter of loss of their wages. If the General Motors concern had been dealing with a rising market and were going to charge from $150 to $200 more for their cars I could understand that they might close their doors and advise their customers of the increase. But that was not the situation. They were readjusting prices to meet the new duty arrangements, and it meant a lowering of cost to the consumer. No one can tell me that a firm who had so much business as obliged them to move their output daily from their plant would find it necessary to deprive their employees of two or three days' work in order that they might revise their prices. No, Mr. Speaker. It was merely a demonstration against the government in this country, and as such it was both unwise and unfair.


John Wesley Edwards: Against a
government.


John Warwick King: It would have
been the same if my hon. friends had been over on this side; they would have had to reduce the duties. These people, in closing their doors merely because there was an adjustment of the tariff which the people of the country through their government con-

sidered proper, have not acted in the best interests either of their industry or of the Dominion.
Now we hear a good deal about increasing the manufacture of Canadian products. Well, there are many automobile parts that we do-not manufacture, but there are many parte that we have the raw material for. Therefore the Minister of Finance said in his budget: It is in the interests of our people that there should be a greater development in the Canadian manufacture of those parts; that is, if the so-called Canadian manufacturers of automobiles are to have the benefit of the rebates m duty, at least fifty per cent of the product must represent Canadian labour and material. Every member of this House should endorse that statement.


Mr. CHAPLIN (Lincoln):: May I ask the minister a question? A minute ago he said there were many parts of cars that were not manufactured in Canada. Would he enumerate a few of them just by way of example?


John Warwick King: No, Mr. Speaker I am going on.


James Dew Chaplin: Why,-


Hewitt Bostock: Order.


John Warwick King: My hon. friend
will have time to dilate on that when he is addressing the House. I know that we have most of the raw materials to make the parts that go into the manufacture of an automobile.


James Dew Chaplin: And every
part is being made here.


John Warwick King: 
Mr. JAMES ARTHURS (Parry Sound):: Mr. Speaker, I am quite sure that the hon. Minister of Public Works (Mr. King) will excuse me if I do not follow him through the specially assembled figures he has presented to the House-figures which will not convince any man in Canada without a job that the country is as prosperous as it should be when we consider its great natural resources. But my hon. friend gave some figures regarding the French treaty, and during the latter part of his remarks I took the trouble to check them. He pointed out that the government had done a great thing for the country by negotiating that treaty, and he gave certain figures of our trade with France before the war and after the war. I happen to have under my hand figures for the years during which this treaty has been in force. I find that in 1923 our imports from France were 812,204,000, and our exports $14,118,000; in 1924 our exports were $15,767,000, and our imports $18,887,000; 1925, imports $18,460,000, exports $10,290,000. In other words, during those treaty years-because half of 1923 was under this treaty-we have had a decrease in our exports to France of $3,828,000 and an increase of our imports from that country of $6,255,000. To put the matter in another way, before this treaty came into effect we had a favourable balance of trade with France of $1,913,000, whereas in the last fiscal year that has been converted into an unfavourable balance amounting to $8,170,000. This, I might say, would apply in almost equal degree to our treaty with Italy, and I believe also to the other treaties which have been negotiated by this government.
The minister also went on to quote certain figures regarding the woollen industry, figures largely from the United States, and concerning one particular company in Canada. No amount of figures can explain away the fact that from 70 per cent to 75 per cent of our woollen mills many of which had been in existence for from forty to sixty years, are now closed owing to the uncertain or adverse actions of the present government during the past four years. The minister also recited certain alleged facts regarding the reduction in taxation last year. He was only quoting what the Minister of Finance said, and he stated that there would be a reduction of aproximately $20,000,000 in our taxation. I would like to point out to the House, Sir,
The Budget-Mr. Arthurs

that this reduction has not materialized. This year we have paid very much more in duties and a much larger amount in sales and other taxes.


John Warwick King: Not in percentages, though.


James Arthurs: The percentage was not changed; certain articles were only last year removed from the sales tax. The sales tax was changed during the previous year. I am not a pessimist, Mr. Speaker, I have always been an optimist and I believe the Conservative party of Canada are not pessimists. But I would point out that great credit is sought for this government on the ground that during the past year we had a period of prosperity in Canada. While I believe that, owing to acts of Providence, certain benefits have been received especially by our farming communities, we know that in the great majority of cases conditions to-day are no better than they were twelve or twenty-four months ago. We have simply struck a favourable tide for the time being, owing to certain circumstances over which this government has no control. It is very easy for a boat to drift with the wind, but if you drift with the wind only it will very often change and the boat will get nowhere. It is absolutely necessary to do something in order to reach the shore. In regard to our circumstances during the past year I might read the Speech from the Throne in that regard, which says:
I congratulate you on the growing prosperity of this favoured land. The products of our agricultural and other basic industries have greatly increased. Our export trade shows remarkable expansions. Our manufacturing and related .industries throughout the Dominion have experienced a development not enjoyed in many years.
I would like to ask the ministry, who put these words into the mouth of His Excellency, where they found the information to justify that statement. I am quite sure that in the part of Canada with which I am familiar hundreds of factories have closed; no new factories have been built, and thousands of men are to-day without proper employment. As I said before, there is a reason for our apparent prosperity. We have had a good crop year in most provinces, and we have enjoyed a period of great prosperity in our mining industry. This industry, fortunately, is not under the control of the Dominion government, but looks for its prosperity to the various provincial governments. Speaking for the province in which I live and which I represent to a greater or less degree, we have to thank the present provincial government

and Minister of Mines for the vast increase in capital which is to-day going into northern Ontario. I would also point out that a part of our prosperity is due to the greatly increasing tourist traffic in Canada. This tourist traffic within a few years, I believe, will be one of the greatest industries in Canada. We have at present millions of dollars invested in taking care of these tourists, and millions more are being invested every day. It is an occupation which requires neither tariff nor free trade; it simply exists, and I think the Acting Minister of Immigration (Mr. Stewart, Edmonton) would be well advised in doing a certain amount of advertising in order to assist this industry. If he would simply show the various points of interest to those who desire to come to Canada he would be doing a good work. Many of these men who come from other countries become permanent residents of Canada, and in the meantime they invest a large amount of money in this country.
I was going to show that the proposition of the government regarding the prosperity of Canada was not altogether in accordance with the facts. I have in my hand a copy of the Public Accounts, and I see that during each of the years from 1920 to 1925 there has been a decrease in the note circulation of this country. That, I think, is a fair indication of the prosperity of the people. The total of our one dollar and two dollar bills in circulation in 1920 was $29,789,653; to-day it i3 $27,911,606.50, a decrease of over $2,000,000, or 8 per cent. In the total circulation of Dominion notes we find that there was $311,932,791.92 in 1920 and $206,712,088.46 in the last fiscal year, a decrease of $105,000,000, or 34 per cent. If we take the notes issued by the various chartered banks, we find that in 1920 the total circulation amounted to $225,769,628, while to-day it amounts to $157,888,900, showing a decrease of $68,000,000, or 30 per cent. These decreases are most interesting, because they give a real picture of the circumstances of our people.
I might also point out that our commercial failures are not decreasing. I have in my hand an extract from the Ottawa Citizen of Saturday last, giving the commercial failures in Canada for the previous week, as reported t>y R. G. Dun & Company:
During the past week failures totalled fifty-five, in comparison with twenty-one in the corresponding week a year ago.
This is the condition under which the government claims prosperity.
A fourth industry which has been prosperous is our paper industry, which has been going

The Budget-Mr. Arthurs
ahead by leaps and bounds in spite of any action the government may have taken. This is one of the principal reasons for such prosperity as we have. I would also point out that in our cities, regardless of their situation, there is very little building as compared with that of a few years ago. We find thousands of houses left in the hands of the builders, for which they can secure no purchasers. If we contrast that condition with the state of affairs under which this government took office five years ago, a great difference will be seen. It was necessary for this parliament at that time to vote twenty or twenty-five million dollars for a housing scheme in an effort to keep abreast of the demand for houses. To-day the exact opposite is the fact with the exception of one or two cities in Canada, and I might point out that these are the very cities which have enjoyed apparent prosperity during the last two or three years, and they are the very ones which are being hit by the government in this budget.
The industrial population of Canada is very large, and they are to-day in a position which, to say the least, is not envious. They are working part time, hanging on under conditions which are very, very unsettled. They are waiting for one thing; they are waiting for some government to come into power which will give adequate protection to Canadian trade. I do not think there is in Canada to-day a city or town that has not had idle factories or idle men or men who are working part time. Thousands of factories have *closed, and many of them have failed during the regime of this government. I hold under my hand Hansard of last year, which shows that in a debate on April 14, 1925, the then Minister of Labour placed on Hansard certain figures which have been disputed from time to time, but, as I say, they were placed there by a then member of the government, and he points out that during the fiscal year of 1922 there were 857 manufacturing failures in Canada; in 1923, 792; and in 1924, 625. These were all manufacturing industries which had failed during those three years, and their liabilities were as follows: In 1922, $39,000,000; 1923, $31,000,000; 1924. $36,000,000. In other words, more than 2,200 manufacturing firms failed in business in Canada during the regime of the present government. Outside of the few exceptions that I have mentioned, namely, factories concerned with lumbering or the pulp industry, it is a fact that we have no new factories in Canada to-day, nor is there any encouragement in the present budget to induce capital to invest in this country.
But the most unsatisfactory feature of the whole situation is the uncertainty that pre-14011-181
vails throughout the country. It is not the action of the government so much as the threats which the government have from time to time made against the people of Canada. The government themselves apparently knew that, for they placed in the mouth of His Excellency in the Speech from the Throne words that would indicate that they desired to quell public unrest, and they assured the people of Canada that no tariff changes would be made without careful investigation. I know that these words have been placed on Hansard before, but in order to complete my remarks I shall read them again:
They-
That is, His Majesty's government.
-believe that in the interest of industrial development every effort should be made to eliminate the element of uncertainty with respect to tariff changes; that changes in the tariff should be made only after the fullest examination of their bearing upon both primary and manufacturing industries and that representations requesting increase or decrease of duties should be made the subject of the most careful investigation and report by a body possessing the necessary qualifications to advise tk** Ministry with respect thereto.
I believe, Mr. Speaker, that this country is in a perfectly healthy state, ordinarily speaking. We have great natural resources, and we have public spirited men who are perfectly willing to go on and develop these resources under proper conditions, but the principal drawback is the fact that we have to-day a government which has condemned itself. The Prime Minister has stated that this government is, and has been, in no condition to make any forward movement in Canada. Take his own words at Richmond Hill. Speaking of the government's continuing in office, he said that if continued in power:
At the most we would be reduced to marking time. This is not a moment in our country's affairs at which to mark time. It is a time to march forward.
Further on, dealing with the majority which he then had, or did not have, in parliament, he said:
I would say further, I do not believe that any one of the four can be dealt with effectively by a government which is not supported by a substantial majority in the House of Commons. Group government and minority government may be inevitable in transitional phases of our political history, but neither is the kind of government wherewith to achieve great reforms.
I was going to say this government reminds me of a stoiy I heard many years ago of a young lady who made up her mind that she was averse to marrying certain kinds of men. In the first place, she said she would not marry a red-headed man under any condition. Nor would she marry a cripple or any man who was deformed. She

The Budget-Mr. Arthurs

would not marry a widower, and she certainly would not marry an old man. But as the days went on, she decided to strike the red-headed man off her list of ineligibles, and decided that she would accept him, if necessary. After a while, as there were so many crippled men after the war, she decided that a slight disability would not make any difference. Time went on, and she decided that perhaps a widower, if he was a young man, would be all right. But he did not come along, and then she decided that she would take practically any man that came along, and she finally married an old, red-headed widower, with six children and a wooden leg. That has been practically the fate of this government. The right hon. leader of this government said that he could not and would not continue in office under certain conditions which at that time were certainly more favourable than the conditions under which he is attempting to govern at the present time. He further said that certain reforms could not be made without a sufficient majority, that without such a majority no important legislation could be put through the House, and yet to-day he is trying to make the people believe that he is giving them something like good when he has no majority at all.


Ernest Lapointe: 'Where is the red hair?


James Arthurs: The government reminds me of an automobile with a slipping clutch. They use just as much gasoline as if they were doing something, but cannot get anywhere except downhill.


Ernest Lapointe: That is better.


Mr. HOCKEN:: It is a breakdown.


James Arthurs: Yes, and it has a brake, but the brake might slip too, and then they would go down faster than ever.
Now, I desire to say a few words regarding the budget itself. The country will undoubtedly welcome the decrease in the income tax, a decrease which should have been made at least two years ago in exactly the same degree. Even according to the statement of the preceding speaker, the hon. Minister of Public Works, it would have been far better for this government to have reduced the income tax as they pretend to be doing than to have made a fake change in the tariff two years ago, and it -would have been better for business in every way. The United States have decreased their income tax twice since it was first instituted. It was never as high as the tax in Canada. I do not know that I need go into the figures; they have been placed on Hansard, I think,
TMr. Arthurs.]
before, but I will cite a few of them. The rate for married men earning $3,000 in United States, under the act of 1924, was $7.50. In Canada it was $40 and it remained at this figure until the present budget. On a $4,000 income in the United States the tax in 1921 was $60, and in 1924 $22.50, but at present it it is only $5.63. The Canadian rate during all this time has been $80. And so I might go on, all down the list. It is easy to prove to any reasonable man that a reduction in this income tax has long been due in Canada. We find that in Great Britain there have been two reductions in income tax amounting on the whole to upwards of thirty-three per cent. Australia has reduced her direct taxation, and I believe another reduction is due. Up to 1925 the tax had been reduced from $19.44 per head to $11.32 per head, a reduction of $8.12 per head of population. If we applied these figures to the population of Canada it would represent a reduction of approximately $70,000,000 to our people, and this reduction, as I said before, would have assisted in keeping capital in Canada and aiding business throughout the country. New Zealand has also reduced her taxation twice, and the reduction is far greater in amount, than that now proposed by the Canadian government. I repeat that had this reduction taken place long ago, as it did in other countries, we might have retained more working capital in Canada.
The same arguments would apply to the-reduction in the postal charges, with this addition: We found that when penny postage was first inaugurated in this country instead, of the government losing money by the change they made money; the receipts of the Post Office Department were greater after the reduction than they were before. Personally I have no doubt that approximately the same result will follow the present reduction.
The tax on receipts was mentioned by the Minister of Public Works. I do not know that I need to go into details on the question. To begin with it was a stillborn child of this government. Nobody ever had any use for the tax, and the government simply took off one that was put on by themselves.
Now, let me deal for a few moments with, the matter of the sales tax. As has been pointed out, the sales tax, previous to this government coming into power, was approximately three per cent-rather less in some cases. In 1922 the government raised the tax to four and a half per cent, and in 1923 they raised it to six per cent. In 1924, experiencing a great change of heart, they brought the tax down to five per cent and then claimed a.

The Budget-Mr. Arthurs
reduction in taxation; but whereas the tax was three per cent under the Conservative government the present rate is five per cent. The collections under this tax amounted to $66,707,390 in 1924-25, or $7.50 for every man, woman and child in Canada. The collection for the last fiscal year, that is to say 1925-26, amounted to $71,900,000, or $8 per capita. This only includes the amount received by the government, and those of us who are business men know that before this tax reaches the ultimate consumer it is increased fifty per cent over that figure as a profit on the amount paid for the tax. The people of Canada are labouring under a very severe burden in respect of this sales tax. The government are getting after everything. I find in my own constituency that where a poor settler, starting to make a home for himself on a bush farm, cuts a few logs and takes them to a mill to make lumber in order to build a house, he is charged the sales tax upon the sawing of that lumber. It would be just as reasonable to charge a sales tax upon the threshing of wheat or the milling of grain for a farmer's own use. However, this is the condition as we find it to-day, and I hope the Minister of Finance will look into the matter fully when he comes to read Hansard, and provide an adequate remedy.
There is one good thing about the sales tax, though. This time the government have seen fit to reduce it upon certain specified articles, and we learn that we are to have the tax entirely removed upon pot barley, pearl barley and split peas. Surely the government does not think that soup is going to become absolutely necessary for the welfare of the people of this country. Yet these three items named in the resolution are the only three upon which the sales tax has been removed.
Before leaving the subject of taxation I wish to say a few words as to the statements made by the Minister of Finance regarding taxation, and the new divisions which he has made-that, is to say, the taxation for war purposes and the receipts derived from war revenue. I have no very great exception to take to the classification he makes, but I should like to point out that he has charged as a war expenditure the difference between the amount of interest upon the public debt as of 1914 and the amount as at the present time. It is quite apparent to anyone who thinks of the matter for a moment that in any event the debt would be larger in 1926 than it would be in 1914. It will also be apparent to anyone who knows the conditions and the amount of advances to our railways that the debt would 14011-181J
be considerably more than it was in 1914. Taking the ordinary average increase for the preceding ten or twelve years-I have taken a ten-year period-not allowing for special conditions and advances and loans to railways, I find that a most unfair charge of $6,575,000 has been made against war expenditure. We find that payments in connection with the Soldier Settlement Board have been so charged. I might point out that the great business of this board at the present time is building up farms for incoming settlers from foreign countries, principally from Great Britain of course-farms that have been thrown up by the soldier occupants, and they are expending upon them large sums of money in order to put them in better condition for intended settlers. Certainly there is no reason why that money should be charged against war expenditure. When we have regard to the amount of the public debt-because after all that is the primary and greatest charge against our income-I point out that the government have given no attention to special receipts arising out of the war. They have received from Great Britain over $60,000,000 in adjustment of war expenditure. They have also received large sums from Belgium, France, Greece and Roumania. But there is no corresponding credit given, and if those matters were properly adjusted we would find we were receiving more under the so-called war taxes than we have expended or are expending.
I come now to the tax proposals of the government. In the first place, only one of the tariff proposals made, is attracting attention in the country to-day; I refer to the reduction in the duty on automobiles. I have no brief for the automobile industry. There are no automobile factories in my county or in its vicinity, nor I believe are any accessories sold there. But I would point out to the government that we do not know whether or not the automobile manufacturer or the manufacturer of the accessories has been taking excessive advantage of the tariff in the past. The duty on these things had been the same for many years past until this budget was introduced. We all know, as was pointed out by the Minister of Public Works a few minutes ago, that there was an attempt last year in the form of a resolution introduced in this House, to lower the duty on automobiles. That resolution was voted down, and I note that every member of the government who was present at that time voted against it. Ten hon. members who were then or are now ministers of the crown were here when that question came up, and the speech made by the Minister of
The Budget-Mr. Arthurs

Public Works (Mr. King) was directly opposed to any reduction of the duty. Furthermore, there is a duty just as high or higher upon many other articles which are at least as necessary as automobiles. If the government have decided that low priced cars are a necessity or that they are an implement of production, why not remove the excise and sales tax?

because the excise tax is purely and simply a luxury tax. We have also been told that the sales tax should be removed from every article of production. If that were done, the reduction by the amount of the sales tax and the excise tax would mean that the price of a .5 p.m. car would be cut far more than it will be reduced under the provisions of the present budget, and in the meantime the position of these factories, and the employment of those thousands of men and their fellow workers whom we saw in Ottawa a few days ago, would not have been jeopardized.
I do not know anything about the automobile industry. I do not know whether they have been taking advantage of the 35 per cent duty accorded them in the past, and I am quite frank in saying that I do not believe any member of the government knows more than I do about the matter. They have no means of knowing, yet they are going ahead-for what purpose I do not know, although I rather suspect it. The government argue that the automobile manufacturers have made too much money under the 35 per cent tariff If that is so, why not give the House a list of the companies, a memorandum of their earnings or of their profits and losses?-because there has been loss in many cases. Let them give us the amount of business done by each company and the income tax collected from each. This would be a simple matter and would show that the government know something about it. I am quite safe in saying that the Minister of Finance has not such a statement under his hand, and that he, like the others, is simply going blindly forward. If we had a statement of that kind; if government officials are competent and honest-and I have no reason to believe they are not- it would show the true state of the automobile manufacturing industry in Canada, and the same would apply to the accessories.
In the meantime all we are asking the government to do is simply to fulfil the direct pledge which was given that there would be no change in the tariff without strict investigation. I have already presented that pledge to the House in another connection. We as a party, or I personally at least, only ask
{Mr. Arthurs.]
the government to stay their hand until the investigation which they themselves have promised-a procedure which at least is fair and honest-has been made. Every member of the then government or of the present government who was here last year voted against the motion for a similar reduction or a reduction of any kind. Why this sudden change? Why this utter disregard of the loss of employment and other injury which may result to industry? There is only one answer. The first reason is that they need the vote of the western members, who were the instigators of the movement in the first instance. In the second place we have today Conservative members representing those centres, which are most vitally interested, whereas a year ago the members representing those constituencies were Liberals. In the third place there is a certain section of this House, I believe-and I am saying that in no invidious sense-which is willing to support anything which will punish Ontario. They do not expect to carry Ontario at the coming election and they are prepared to let that province go to the wall so long as it does not hurt their own interests.
The other night an hon. member read at great length a speech delivered by Henry Ford'. I do not know that that has anything to do with the matter. If I were in Henry Ford's place I would do exactly what he is trying to do. I would advocate the same doctrines he is advocating to-day, the same doctrines Mr. Carnegie advocated after he had got the United States Steel Trust in the position in which he placed it. He was quite willing then to be a free trader, and so is Henry Ford when he has practically a monopoly of the market in automobiles. We are not asking the support of men of that kind. We as a party are asking that we should have a tariff that will build up our trade, or that will do the very things in a greater or less degree along the lines which have made Mr. Ford and others a success. We want to build up our own factories and keep our own people here, not drive them away. The Minister of Public Works said something about the exodus from Canada-it is just matters like this which are driving our young men to the United States. I gave the figures last year with reference to the emigration of native born Canadians to the United States, showing that in the preceding three years 540,000 young people had left this country for the other side. I think the hon. member for Huron at that time showed from the same source that in the ten years preceding some. 700,000 Canadians had gone to the United States. That may be true, but the period

	The Budget-Mr. Arthurs
included years when some Canadians went to the United States for a purpose that did not reflect any credit on themselves. But during the same years mentioned by that gentleman 265,000 men returned to Canada, according to the certificate of the United States government, or an average of 26,500 per annum, whereas during the last five years there have returned an average of less than 2,500 per annum. Our Canadian officials may of course give figures different from these, but it must be remembered that they take into account men, women and children who are returning to Canada temporarily to spend a month or two in the summer. I know that as a matter of fact for some of my own relations have been so treated in the statistics: they have been entered as returning to Canada although they are permanently resident in the United States. We should take our figures from one authority, and the statistics given in the annual report of the Commissioner General of Immigration of the United States I would commend to the House. Hon. gentlemen can get the book in the library and if they will look up the figures they will find that they are indeed alarming. Now I come to another branch of the tariff as it affects the farmers of Canada. A large ' percentage of Canadians who have been looking forward to some relief from the budget have been disappointed. These people do not ask a reduction but, on the contrary, an increase in the tariff in order to protect themselves. Since this government came into power four and a half years ago great changes have taken place in tariff matters throughout the world. Every country of which I have any knowledge has increased its tariff in that time, and this is particularly true of our friends to the south. The one in particular I want to discuss now is the Fordney tariff, in which a very material increase was made in the duties on farm products entering the United States. The United States duty on such products is in some cases many times higher than our own, while others are absolutely prohibitive. I shall not put these figures on Hansard, seeing that they were very ably discussed yesterday by the hon. member for New Westminster (Mr. McQuar-rie). Besides, they are familiar to hon. members. Strong representations have been made to the government that the Canadian agriculturist, the mixed farmer at least, should be accorded a fair tariff which will preserve the home market in view of the fact that he is debarred from the United States. Many of our Progressive friends sneer at the idea of a home market; they claim that their	product depends entirely upon the foreign market. The prices for the things they produce, whether wheat or anything else, are controlled altogether by conditions abroad, and therefore they see no benefit in the home market. It seems to me that many of the arguments they advance and some of the figures they quote must have been prepared by someone who either had not made a close study of the subject or had had a brainstorm. The member for Maple Creek (Mr. Spence) made certain statements, as will be found at page 2680 of Hansard of April 21, 1926. He said: In my own province of Saskatchewan we have, roughly, $500,000,000 coming in from our wheat crop alone, and aibout three-quarters of s. billion, in round figures, for all field crops. We have one billion and & half dollars corning into Canada as a whole from all agricultural products. Then to show his appreciation of the industrial element of Canada he says: We have three million people engaged in agriculture. I am sometimes inclined to smile a little when I hear my hon. friends talking about industry and its importance. They speak of some shoe factory employing a few hundred men, or some automobile manufacturer employing a few thousand men, and turning out a few hundred thousand dollars' worth of automobiles. This shows how carefully some gentlemen consider the conditions in Canada. Speaking from his own point of view the hon. gentleman declared that our dairy industry alone was worth more than the products of all the mines and all the oil and gas wells in Canada. Had he taken the trouble to look up the statistics he would have discovered how wide of the mark he was in many respects. The statement that we receive in Canada one: and a half billions from agricultural products strikes me as absurd on the face of it, and I do not believe anyone who has looked into the matter believes that. I have here a return giving, article by article, the exports from Canada of agricultural products during the past calendar year, and showing where they went, whether to Great Britain, to the United States or elsewhere. A few of these things give evidence of the adverse effect of the Fordney tariff on the farmer of Canada. We exported last year $5,990,000 worth of apples, of which only $150,000 worth went to the United States. Of barley we exported $24,000,000 worth, the United States taking only $10,000. Our exports of oats amounted to $23,000,000 and of this sum the United States took only one-quarter of one million dollars worth. One of the few exceptions to this long list of adverse trade relations with the United States in these commodities is wheat, of which the United States took from

The Budget-Mr. Arthurs
us $12,219,000 worth. This commodity did not pay the forty-two cents American duty, and that is why it went into the United States. They imported this wheat to raise the grade of their own flour so that it might successfully compete against the Canadian miller in Canada. In other words, they imported this wheat entirely in the interests of the American manufacturer.


Mr. HOWDEN:: The hon. member might
give the entire wheat exports of Canada.


James Arthurs: I shall in due course.
Of wheat flour we exported $74,000,000 worth, sending only $67,000 worth to the United States-not one dollar in one hundred thousand. The same thing is seen in cereals. The total exports of farm products from Canada during the last calendar year amounted to $667,185,568, of which $402,442,681 worth were to the United Kingdom, $102,367,815 to the United States, and $1671575,072 to other countries. This total includes products of the farm under three headings: first, field crops, raw materials; second, field crops, partly manufactured; third, field crops, chiefly or fully manufactured. The second table relates to animal husbandry, and the figures are under the same headings-raw, partly manufactured and fully manufactured. I pointed out that the hon. member for Maple Creek was a long way wrong when he said we received a billion and a half dollars for the products of the farm. These figures, as I said before, show that we received less than $700,000,000. Let me point out to the House some of the items composing the total. For instance, among "farm products" we find the following exported to the United States: ale, $5,042,806; gin, $56,361; whiskey, $10,772.988; other potable spirits, $107,382; wines, $77,262; or in all, agricultural products, partly manufactured, $16,056,797-every dollar of which went to the United States according to these statistics.


Mr. McMILLAN:: May I correct the hon. gentleman? The hon. member for Maple Creek did not say that the farmers of Canada received $1,500,000,000; he said that the value of the agricultural products of Canada was $1,500,000,000.


James Arthurs: Mr. Speaker, I think I
can understand the English language just as well 'as the hon. member for South Huron. I will read again what the hon. member for Maple Creek said:
We have a ibiHiion and a half dollars coming into Canada as a whole from all agricultural! products.
No words can be more distinct, and those are the words I repeated. It is no use for

my hon. friend from South Huron to try to lead me to think I made a mistake. I am pointing out that to-day even those agricultural products which were exported were composed of goods, especially those going to the United States, which, to say the least, were very doubtful farm products. The figures I gave regarding the export of ales, spirits, and similar commodities were exclusively for the United States. The total figures of such farm product exports were very much higher; for instance, the total for whiskey alone is $13,334,092.


Mr. YOUNG (Weyburn):: Does that include smuggled whiskey?


James Arthurs: I have nothing to do
with smuggling; the hon. gentleman may know. I would also point out other items which are peculiar so far as farm products are concerned. For instance, linen and jute manufactures, $41,152; oil cloths, $69,787; wool carpets, $11,799; wool fabrics, $23,578; wool underwear-they make use of Australian wool at that-$74,876; wool clothing, $309,982; other woollens, $185,618. I am using these figures principally to show that some of the statements made by our friends to the left are, to say the least, wide of the mark.
The assertion was made the other night- 1 think by the hon. member for Qu'Appelle (Mr. Millar)-that our exports to Australia last year were $105,000,000. Although that figure was repeated twice by the hon. gentleman, I felt satisfied there must be something wrong. On looking up the exports to Australia I find that in 1924 we sent to that country goods to the value of $19,000,000- not $105,000,000. In 1925 that value dropped to $12,000,000-under the Australian treaty. So the hon. gentleman was overstating the exact amount by almost ten times!
I have already remarked, Mr. Speaker, that sometimes the arguments advanced by our friends to the left are not exactly fair to those of us in this part of the House, nor are they exactly fair to the eastern provinces. We find the impression is sought to be conveyed by certain hon. gentlemen that the eastern provinces, especially Ontario and Quebec, are endeavouring for their own profit to take everything they possibly can out of the western provinces. This has been the stock argument of our Liberal friends in the western provinces for some time. I do not think it -would do any harm to point out that this is not always the case. I have before me the official figures for last year and the year before of the various federal duties and taxes collected, and I am quite within the mark when I say that the provinces of

The Budget-Mr. Arthurs
Ontario and Quebec together have for years paid over eighty per cent of our total federal taxation; that next comes British Columbia; and that during the last two years at least there has been collected from the three prairie provinces only eight per cent of the total Dominion taxation.


Mr. McKENZIE:: How does the hon
member arrive at the amounts received from Alberta and so on?


James Arthurs: I am using the government's own figures, as brought down last year in answer to a question by Mr. McCrea.


Robert McKenzie: The taxes are collected
at the ports in British Columbia and so on, but there is no such thing in Saskatchewan and Alberta.


James Arthurs: I think the hon. gentleman is mistaken. I am willing to admit that so far as customs duties are concerned there is a considerable amount of goods taken out in bond in cities like Toronto and Montreal and then reshipped, but that is not invariably the case. The importer in Winnipeg takes his goods out of bond in Winnipeg, and it is only in the case of small dealers that the goods are reshipped from larger points. But that has nothing to do with the figures I gave. They are not only for the customs duties but also cover the excise tax, sundry collections, income tax and business profits tax. These are all included in the items I gave, which are substantially correct.


John Power Howden: Does not the hon. member think a great deal of the taxes paid by Ontario manufacturers is eventually refunded to them by the consumers in the west?


James Arthurs: The great bulk of it 's
paid by the manufacturing concerns of the east. If my hon. friend thinks the western consumers pay too much, the remedy I would suggest is to get the manufacturers in the west. If you put the proper party in power and send us over to the other side of the House we will soon have a policy which will enable you to have manufacturers in the west.


Mr. DONNELLY:: Would the hon. gentleman tell us what manufacturers he thinks could start in the west?


James Arthurs: There are plenty who
could start in the west, as they have started in the western part of the United States. They could get along very well if they had the capital and the necessary protection.


John Power Howden: I would like to ask the hon. gentleman why he did not start any manufacturing concerns there when he was in power.


James Arthurs: I did not have enough
money and I do not belong to that part of the country. When this party was in power there were more important matters to be settled than the starting of manufacturing in any part of Canada.
I do not know that it is necessary to place it on Hansard, but I have in my hand a return of the Canadian National Railways showing the amounts received in various sections of the country, which goes to prove that the great central portion of Canada from Montreal to Port Arthur has shown a decided * profit for the railway, whereas the central western portion of the road and the extreme eastern portion have shown deficits.


Edward James Young: Let us have the figures.


James Arthurs: Very well. These figures are for 1924: Revenues over Atlantic division, $7,721,399.54. I am not going to give the operating figures, but the net deficit was $3,545,005.24. Central region: receipts, $117,160,048.47, profit, $15,950,871.91. Does the hon. gentleman want the figures for the west?


Edward James Young: Yes.


James Arthurs: Western division:	receipts, $6S,U4,750, deficit, $872,283.98.


Edward James Young: Does that western division include the section through the mountains?


James Arthurs: I presume it does, because I do not see any other division indicated. I would also point out to our western friends that among the privileges they enjoy are extremely favourable freight rates upon commodities which they ship in that part of the country. I do not think it will be disputed by any western man that there is a difference of from 7 cents to 9 cents a bushel between the price charged the American farmer and the price charged the Canadian farmer for shipment over an equal distance west of the Great Lakes, under the Crowsnest pass agreement.


John Power Howden: Would the hon. gentleman explain why,, in the four fall months during which wheat is being shipped, the National railway shows a surplus?


Mr. McGIBBON:: That is the time they lose money.


James Arthurs: The hon. gentleman is
confusing two things, I think. Certain figures
The Budget-Mr. Arthurs

were given the House the other day concerning the Canadian Pacific Railway, and I think he has those in mind. I would also point out that during the months previous to the movement of grain the railway companies are under great expense in providing the necessary rolling stock, which is naturally charged up to those months, thus reducing the profit. We all know that thousands of cars must be moved west in order that they may be available during the rush season. I quite see, as a practical man, that that is an additional reason for expense, and no receipts would be shown in those months, to balance the extra expense.


James J. Donnelly: Would the hon. gentleman explain how it is that the railways, where there is a meeting point, compete for the grain which is to be moved? If there is no profit, why should there be competition?


James Arthurs: Each company wants to have that money passing through its hands; each company is anxious to get the business. I may say frankly that if the railways can do enough business they can afford to reduce rates. There is a certain amount chargeable for overhead; a certain amount chargeable for keeping up tracks; interest must be met, and certainly if they get more business they can do it at a lower rate and make a profit.


An hon. MEMBER:: Then they are anxious to do more business in order to lose more money?


James Arthurs: The hon. gentleman is
wide of the mark. In order to show the benefit the farmer has received I will quote an eminent authority. If the hon. member thinks the farmers are receiving no benefit from the Crowsnest pass agreement, I would refer him to the hon. member for Brandon (Mr. Forke) for information. I have in my hand a Canadian Press despatch of a speech made by the hon. member for Brandon a.t Elkhorn just previous to the last election, in which he is reported to have said that had there been no Progressives at Ottawa there would have been no Crowsnest pass rates. He is also reported to have said that these rates were worth $20,000,000 a year to the central western provinces. There can be no doubt of that authority.
I do not think, Mr. Speaker, that I will detain the House longer. Most of these subjects will come up at another time and I shall be pleased to discuss them when they are again before the House. In closing I might point out that there is nothing in this budget which will help the people of Canada.

There is no relief for the farmers, who are suffering by reason of an adverse tariff; there is nothing giving an extra day's work to our factories; there is nothing to induce new factories to come to Canada and nothing to induce the re-opening of those factories which are idle; there is nothing to indicate a policy designed to have our raw materials further manufactured in Canada for the benefit of Canadians-simply the same old course as that pursued by this government during the past four years. The idea of this government is to hang on to power, and to drift. It may be easier than pulling against the stream, but I want to point out to hon. gentlemen opposite that you will never get any higher if you are content to drift down with the current.


Mr. S. G. TOBIN (Wetaskiwin):: Mr. Speaker, I enjoyed the address to which we have just listened from the hon. member for Parry Sound (Mr. Arthurs): It was a moderate speech, and although I do not agree with his deductions, 1 believe he was entirely sincere, as indeed I believe all hon. members are in fhe speeches they make in this House. I shall not enter into any of his arguments at the present time, but shall touch on certain points as I go along.
I want to join, first of all, in the chorus of congratulations to the Minister of Finance (Mr. Robb) and the government on the budget brought down. The many tributes that have been paid to the government from different quarters of the House and by all sections of the country are, I believe, well justified. The budget itself is in plain phraseology. Everything is shown in clear detail. There is no camouflage; there are no hidden mysteries. It lays bare the facts in a way that all may read and understand. The plain facts are good enough; they do not need to be coloured or concealed. The Finance minister's presentation was couched in good, clear Anglo-Saxon, from a people's government to the people themselves. In its genuine) modesty it reflects its author. I believe the budget will appeal to the people in all walks of life in this country. The Finance minister did not find it necessary to make comparisons between this period and other periods or between this government and previous governments, for as someone has said, it is a budget that speaks for itself.
As I listened to the different speakers, a saying of Lord (Macaulay came to my mind. That is the best government, he said, which desires to make the people happy and knows how to make them happy. It was Bright or

The Budget-Mr. Tobin (Wetaskiwin)
Cobden who said that a government whose legislation does not give relief to every humble cottager in the land has not solved the problem of government. These sayings come back to my mind as I read the budget and couple it with the Speech from the Throne; for the two together make up a programme that I believe will bring relief to all the people of this land.
I do not intend to go to any very great length or to any very great depth in dealing with matters to which reference may be made in the debate on the budget. I think of the first speech Mrs. Nellie McClung, delivered in the Alberta legislature, of which she is still a member. She tried to show her position as a new member and to state her idea of how she should speak as such. She compared her position with that of a curler. When the curlers go on the ice, she said, they slide down a number of rocks to get the run of the ice, and I am going to get the run of the ice, she said, before I venture very far afield. I have made up my mind, Mr. Speaker, that I do not want to venture too far in this House before I get the run of the ice, and I would like to suggest in the most friendly way to some of the new members opposite that if they would first get the run of the ice they would probably do better in the long run, and there would not be so many speeches made that the authors would afterwards like to have deleted from the records.
Coming to the budget itself, I find that the expenditures for the year have been kept belorv the estimated figures and that the estimated revenues have been exceeded. The national debt has been reduced, and the National railway has progressed beyond our fondest hopes. It is to-day reaching to the goal where it will require no more funds from the national treasury. That is made plain in the budget, and the showing of the railway alone wTould be a credit to and an achievement for any government in this Dominion.
The people are going to be asked to dip into their pockets for $25,000,000 less of taxation this year than last. Now that may seem a small amount to some people, but I think it shows the trend of affairs when taxation is being reduced to the extent of $25,000,000.
The return to penny postage will simplify things very much. Three will not divide exactly into five, ten, twenty-five, fifty or a hundred, and when I go to the post office to buy stamps I always have to figure how many stamps I should get for a certain sum and how much change I ought to have. But that difficulty is now solved.


John Wesley Edwards: How do
you manage when you buy two-cent stamps with a quarter?


Stanley Gilbert Tobin: You can figure that more easily. I am glad to see that the receipt tax has been done away with. I have received a great many letters from my constituency expressing the hope that this tax would be abolished. You can put your stamp on a cheque, and if you have not the necessary stamp you can make the cheque out for two cents extra. But in the case of the receipt stamp, somebody may want to pay you money he owes when you are on the train or out in the woods, where no stamp is available. You naturally want to get the money, and I am glad that the government has seen fit to remove this tax.
I am sure that the reduction in the duty on automobiles meets with the approval of all the western provinces, and I think of the eastern provinces as well. I have read the newspapers on both sides of politics, including the Edmonton Journal, the Calgary Herald and the Vancouver Province, and all seem to agree that the right thing has been done. The people want automobiles, and want to get them as cheaply as they can. There is one phase of this question that I should like to put before the House. I think the difference in the price of the same make of automobile here and in the United States has had a bad effect on' immigration. People will compare the price of an automobile here with the price of the same car in the United States, and finding a big spread between the two they naturaly conclude that if there is this difference between the price of automobiles in the two countries, the same difference applies in other lines of goods. They cannot make such a comparison in the case of other articles, hats, for * instance, or clothing, because they may not be the same kind of article. But the Ford or the Dodge car is the same here as it is in the United States, and people notice the large spread in price between the two countries. That, I think, has done a lot of harm.
The same is true of the income tax. People can figure out exadtly what they have to pay in this country and what they would have to pay in the United States. We are still paying a higher income tax than they are across the line, but we are now approaching equality, and I am glad that this is so. The income tax as changed affects particularly the man with a small salary. The man who enjoys a salary of $3,000 used to pay $40 income tax; to-day he pays nothing. A man in receipt of an income of $3,500 formerly paid $60; to-day he pays only $10. The man
2858	COMMONS
The Budget-Mr. Tobin (Wetaskiwin)
with a salary of 14,000 formerly paid $80; to-day his tax amounts to only $20. I think this is a move in the right direction.
Now, the splendid achievements of the past fiscal year and the promising outlook for the coming year are not the results of chance or accident. Shakespeare has said that men are sometimes masters of their fate. He might just as well have said that governments are sometimes the masters of their fate. These achievements have been brought about because the present government when they assumed office in 1921 took hold of the administration of public affairs with the determination, as the ordinary man says, "to make it go." The gratifying improvement that has come about is due to the business ability of the present government and their bullheaded determination Ito win. When they (took office in 1921 they had faith in themselves, in Canada and in the Canadian people. I unhesitatingly affirm that no government that ever assumed office in Canada was faced by such difficulties and handicaps as those which confronted the King government in 1921. The previous administration, if we are to judge by the admissions made by some of its members, had apparently lost hope in themselves and hope in the country. In what other light are we to read the last budget speech of Sir Thomas White in which he expressed himself as follows:
The world Is sadly out of tune. Trust and confidence is sadly lacking. Class interests are advanced with t sellish insistence. Unemployment is with us. Faith in our fellow men is weakened. Doubt of the future is voiced, and what is the trouble0 The sun still shines, the rivers still sparkle and our lands are as fruitful as ever; our resources just as great.
Having painted the desolate picture that he did, the then Minister of Finance exhorted parliament to remember that the sun was still shining and the fields were still fruitful, and Providence in this case was asked5 to come to the assistance of a Conservative government. Well, Providence did come to their assistance and relieved them of office and put the present government in power. To-day the opposition say that everything good that has happened in the country is due to a kind Providence. If that be true, when hon. gentlemen opposite had) a heavier burden than they could carry it was Providence who relieved them of that burden and placed it on the shoulders of the present government.
I have already said that the present government replaced an administration which seemed to have fallen into a state of despair. The country suffered from an adverse trade balance. During the last two years of the last government the national debt was increased by $174,000,000. It kept piling up at a tre-

mendous rate, and the cost of government kept pace with it. The adverse trade balance was most marked during the years 1911, 1912, and 1913, amounting in the aggregate to $736,000,000, perhaps the greatest adverse trade balance in the history of the country. And in the years which followed, agriculture fell into a deplorable condition, business was depressed, the Canadian dollar fell below par-* and the value of the dollar reflects the financial status of a country; upon it outside financiers and other countries base their opinion of the credit and the solvency of a country. Not only was the Canadian dollar at a considerable discount at that time, but Canadian securities and bonds were falling in value, and the people were greatly disheartened and discouraged. The national debt rose to $2,422,000,000.


John Wesley Edwards: In what
year?


Stanley Gilbert Tobin: In 1921. My hon. friend seems to dispute that. Well, that is according to my best information. The King government assumed 'office under all these handicaps: an enormous adverse trade balance, the cost of government increasing, and the national debt mounting at a tremendous rate. When the Liberal party were in power previously the national debt amounted to only $350,000,000, but when they once more assumed the administration of public affairs in 1921 it had advanced to $2,400,000,000, in round figures. Under those conditions it was a herculean proposition for them to attempt to carry on the government of the country. It took men of vision and courage to grapple with the situation. The task could only have been undertaken by men animated by a grim determination to bring back order out of a state almost of chaos.
How was the task accomplished? The new government, as the saying is, put their house in order. First of all they devoted their attention to effecting retrenchment in the governmental expenditure. I believe that in the budget speech of last year it was shown that the cost of government had been reduced by twenty-five per cent. The ratio of governmental expenditure then stood as three to four; that is to say, the new government spent only $3 to every $4 which had been spent by the previous administration. Then a reduction was brought about in the tariff in order to encourage the basic industries. Hon. gentlemen will remember the great reduction which took place in the duty on farm implements in 1924, and the prediction made by the opposition at the time that the

The Budget-Mr. Tobin (Wetaskiwin)
concerns engaged in that industry would go out of business, and that Canada would be ruined. The results have been just the reverse. To-day the Massey-Harris Company, the Cockshutt Company and the different other concerns engaged in that business, are doing well.
The next matter to which the government gave their attention was the expansion of trade by the arrangement of commercial treaties with other countries. A great deal has been done in that direction, and more will be done in the future along the same lines. In future if we go to the West Indies we shall be able to see the product of our flour mills, our smoked hams and bacon, our biscuits, our hay feed and other products, being unloaded at different ports in those islands. When the present government came into power they realized that the home market was not at all sufficient for a great producing country like the Dominion of Canada.


Peter McGibbon: May I ask the hon.
member a question?


Stanley Gilbert Tobin: 1 knew the hon. gentleman would do so sooner or later. Go ahead.


Peter McGibbon: Does the hon. member approve taking the duty off sugar to hurt the Canadian farmer, and putting a duty on bananas to help the niggers from the West Indies?


Stanley Gilbert Tobin: I did not catch the question very well. Did the hon. member say taking the duty off sugar?


Peter McGibbon: Yes.


Stanley Gilbert Tobin: Yes, we want our sugar kept at a reasonable price.


Peter McGibbon: Does the hon. member want to hurt the Canadian farmer?


Stanley Gilbert Tobin: He is not producing nearly enough sugar to-day. We would have to go with very little sugar to-day if we used only Canadian sugar.
At six o'clock the House took recess.
After Recess
The House resumed at eight o'clock.


Stanley Gilbert Tobin: (Wetaskiwin):	When the
House rose at six o'clock I was endeavouring to show the conditions that obtained in Canada when the present government took office in 1921. I had referred to the trade of the country, the growing cost of government, the
outlook for the agriculturist, the depression in business, the falling value of the Canadian dollar and of Canadian securities and bonds, the distressed condition of the Canadian people, and the immensity of the national debt. I was then going to show what methods the government had taken to restore order and prosperity in Canada, and in this connection I mentioned governmental retrenchment, reductions in tariff duties and the extension of trade by means of commercial treaties. One other subject of vast importance to Canada remains to be dealt with, namely, the problem of transportation.
In reference to automobiles I should like with the permission of the House to put on record in Hansard a statement which, although it has already appeared, is of such moment as to warrant repetition. Henry Ford, as we all know, is one of the best recognized businessmen on the American continent. Not only has he made a colossal success of his business in the United States, but -he owns a large proportion of the stock of the Canadian Ford Company. The article in question has a very important bearing on the present situation, and without reading it I will ask to have it published in Hansard. It was an interview by Mr. Ford in which he confirmed a. previous interview and added to it. He said:
As a manufacturer of automobiles in Canada he believes the tariff to be a hindrance and stupidity.
Mr. Ford surprised people with something of this opinion in a brief remark after visiting his great Canadian plant on Wednesday. This afternoon he enlarged on the subject, confirmed his statement that free trade would benefit industry, gave his reasons and explained their application to the manufacture of Ford cars in Canada.
From the conversation came voluntary statements of pertinence and encouragement to Canadians, that it is possible to manufacture as cheaply in Canada as in the United States, that Ford cars in Canada have been selling at a higher price than necessary because of the tariff, that the tariff encourages industrial indolence and tends to permit prices based on what the market will pay rather than on proper costs of production, that the Ford Company of Canada, and presumably other Canadian companies will develop greater efficiency and economy of manufacture as a result of the proposed tariff reductions. Would he offer an opinion which might be useful to Canadians who are perplexed?
"You people are just waking up," said Mr. Ford in reply. "You ought to rub the other eye now, too, and clean out the tariff."
"Would it be a good thing for your company in Canada?"
"Certainly."
"The tariff is a hindrance to trade. I would have free trade. I believe in free trade everywhere."
"Do you mean by that that you can manufacture a Ford car as cheaply in Canada as you can here?"
"I can. Give me that plant at Ford City and I'll compete with the plant here at Highland Park any day. Why shouldn't I? Our unit in Canada can buy as cheaply as we can here. We make every part of the car in the Canadian plant and ninety-five per cent,
2860	COMMONS
The Budget-Mr. Tobin (Wetaskiwin)
over eighty-five anyway, of the raw material is supplied right in Canada. We get our steel from Algoma, lumber, everything we need."
"The usual answer," I suggested, "would be that large scale production makes the difference. Many Canadian manufacturers believe that they cannot compete with American manufacturers because the latter have advantages in mass production."
"I don't see that," said Mr. Ford, "What do you mean by mass production? I think we've got large scale production in our Canadian unit. They're turning out six hundred cars a day."
"How many are you making here?"
"Oh, we're doing between seven and eight thousand a day, but I don't think that's any advantage after a certain point."
"Do you mean that large scale production ceases to be an advantage when it grows beyond a certain degree?"
"Yes," said Mr. Ford, and explained that costs of manufacturing are almost equally divided between labour and raw materials. In both of these items, he argued, the Ford Company of Canada is as favourably situated as the American plants.
"In fact," he added, "you have a better class of workman in Canada than we have here, more intelligent, more vigorous. I like to look at their faces. They're mostly Anglo-Saxon."
"If it is true then," I said, "that the Ford car can be made as cheaply in Canada as here, why have we had to pay a much higher price for it all this time?" "The old story," replied Mr. Ford, with a twist of his shoulders, "Because they have been able to get the price, that's all."
"Because the tariff has made the higher price possible?"
"Yes, certainly they've been able to get a higher price in Canada, naturally they've taken it."
"It is quite evident that the consumer will benefit from tariff reduction by lower prices," I said, "but you say that the automobile manufacturer will benefit also. Can you explain in what way?"
"Why, yes," replied Mr. Ford in some surprise, "It's quite simple. Lower prices mean more buyers, more buyers mean more business, more business means growth for the manufacturer. I would cut out the tariff," he repeated, "and have free trade. Free competition brings healthy business. I can tell you that those fellows over in our Canadian unit are going to manufacture more efficiently now. They'll have to it's going to be a better plant over there, better organization. That's another reason why it's a good thing for the manufacturer."
"You believe then," I asked, "that to help the manufacturer one must first help the consumer, and if the consumer benefits the manufacturer is bound to benefit?"
"I don't know any other way," replied Mr. Ford briefly.
"Some people," I explained, "believe in the reverse process. They say that tariff reduction will kill manufacturing in Canada, that there will be unemployment, and no wages, and therefore no money for the consumer to spend, that you must first help the manufacturer in order to help the consumer."
"That's all wrong," said Mr. Ford.
In the matter of transportation the present government, we are all pleased to know, has placed the Canadian National railway system on a strictly business basis. This system was in bad shape in 1921 and the government, having looked the globe over for a man with a sufficient knowledge of the transportation business, at length discovered one-large in 
avoirdupois, large in business ability, and large in optimism. The result the Canadian people know. To-day the Canadian National railway system is not only one of the best transportation concerns in Canada and in the North American continent, but it has been so equipped and built up as to measure up in efficiency with and offer real competition to the best transportation system in the world, the Canadian Pacific Railway. The efforts of the government in this and other reforms have led to the following conditions: Wte have a favourable trade balance of over $400,000,0010, a balance which is steadily increasing, while business in all commercial and financial circles to-day is recognized as sound. You have only to read the financial newspapers, the reports of banks and insurance companies and of commercial enterprises generally, to confirm this statement. Business in the country is on a sound basis and is increasing. These results have been achieved since the present government came into power. Now we have a balanced and more than balanced budget, accompanied by a reduction in the cost of living as well as in the cost of government. Furthermore, our dollar has its full purchasing power, so that financial institutions in this and other countries look upon the solvency of Canada to-day in a different light as compared with the condition of 1921. Our National railway system is a pronounced success, as I said a moment ago, and our bonds are buoyant, being sought after by all buyers of securities. The present state of affairs shows, therefore, a very marked improvement over the period preceding 1921. In this phenomenal improvement our good friends opposite-and I am sincere when I refer to them in this way- can only see and believe that the hand of Providence has been partial to the Liberal party. If that is so, I would advise the government to continue to work hand in hand with Providence.
The condition of affairs as shown by the budget will stand out in all the greater relief by reason of the fact that so many have been giving us such dismal pictures of the country during a number of years past. We have heard " the whisper of death," and blue ruin has been preached with wearisome persistence. We all remember the election campaign of October last. You will remember the blue ruin stories that were circulated throughout the country. What will the people who heard those stories, and in a measure believed them, think now? Then in the debate on the Address in reply to the Speech from the Throne the House will remember some of the blue ruin speeches with which members

The Budget-Mr. Tobin (Wetaskiwin)
of the opposition favoured us. I hope I will get the ear of the government for the suggestion I am now going to offer them. I think it is the duty of the government to see that every elector be sent a copy of this budget together with some excerpts from the speeches of our lion, friends opposite condemning all things in this country and prophesying national disaster. In my opinion the electorate are entitled to this information so they may contrast the prosperous condition of the Dominion to-day with the gloomy forebodings of our friends opposite during the years they have been in opposition.


Peter McGibbon: The people won't forget it.


Stanley Gilbert Tobin: No. The
Minister of Finance referred to this in his budget speech, which will be found at page 2451 of Hansard. He said:
I have the greater reason fgr mentioning this because of my belief that the Canadian peapfle an coping with the era of depression which followed the collapse of the post-war boom, have been unnecessarily hampered by a plague of gloom which shrouded the thoughts and utterances of too many Canadians, and but for which the prosperity of the moment would be even greater than it is to-day my privulege to record.
Now, I was in opposition for a long time in the Alberta legislature, and I have as much respect for the functions of the opposition as for the government itself under our parliamentary system. I always envy the private member in opposition, for he has liberties there that he cannot expect to have on the government side, and consequently he has better opportunity to develop. In my view every government needs constructive criticism, it is good both for the government itself and for the country at large, and if we would maintain our present parliamentary system the opposition as much as the government must help to maintain the respect of the people for our system of government. But when the people listen to our discussions here or read about them in the newspapers and find the opposition condemning every proposition advanced by the government whether it be good or bad, their respect for our parliamentary system is likely to be weakened. In Alberta we had an opposition party. A member of that party is now in this House, a good friend of mine, and another member was the hon. gentleman now representing West Calgary (Mr. Bennett) who is not in his seat. But that opposition was too strenuous and worked itself out of business. The Conservative party in the Alberta legislature dwindled and dwindled until it became extinct; but I believe that if its members had been fair and had
criticized the government fairly, they would have succeeded better. I say this in all kindness and seriousness to my friends opposite and by way of giving them good advice.


Mr. DAVIS:: How many Liberals were left in that government of which the hon. member speaks so highly?


Stanley Gilbert Tobin: That is not the point. There are a dozen left. But the opposition, had it given the right kind of service, might have been ready to take office at some time.


An hon. MEMBER:: How many Conservatives are there?


Stanley Gilbert Tobin: 
John Wesley Edwards: What is the United States duty?


Stanley Gilbert Tobin: It is 12 cents now; I am glad my hon. friend reminded me of that fact. The United States duty k 12 cents and the Canadian duty only 4 cents, but we export nearly $2,000,000 worth of butter to the United States, as against our imports which amount to about $13,000. Will we run the risk of losing all our trade by tampering with that duty? We might raise the duty until there would be no trade at all; would that be good business?
I might go on, but it is not necessary to labour this question. The same applies to wheat and to fresh meats. I now want to examine further in a concise form where agriculture stands, and I have the figures arranged in the way I would like them to appear in Hansard. They are as follows:
Imported into Canada for Twelve Months ending December, 1925, from all Countries Agriculture and vegefcab'e products	 $196,041,785
Animal and animal products. 45,703,203 $241,744,988


Mr. SMOKE:: The hon. gentleman is reading from the report of a speech made in this House this year. Is that in order, Mr. Speaker?


Stanley Gilbert Tobin: 
Mr. SPENCE (Parkdale):: I would not
stop if I were you.


Stanley Gilbert Tobin: Thank you. I want to read the opinion of a well-known Canadian journalist on the prospects of the Pacific trade. Mr. John Nelson, speaking in Toronto on November 12 last, said:
"Treat the Pacific as our forefathers treated the Atlantic. Be Drakes and Frobishers, explorers undismayed by foreign lands and foreign tongues, so you willl create a new Elizabethan age and grow rich with the art and culture no less than the economic wealth of Cathay."
This was the advice which John Nelson, well-known Canadian journalist, left with the members of the Empire Club when he addressed them ait luncheon to-day on the problems of the Pacific as .they affect Canada. The address was based on observations he had made this summer in Honolulu at a conference of the Institute of Pacific Relations, a gathering of 120 delegates representing nine countries.
Canada's orientation in foreign affairs should be "oocidentation," said Mr. Nelson. The Occident was calling to Canadian statesmen as well as to Canadian merchants, and the future of the country was on the [DOT] Pacific even more than on the Atlantic.
"Premier Mackenzie King," said Mr. Nelson, "has declared that our prosperity is bound up with our export trade. Where will we find greater opportunities for new markets than in Japan and China."
He was impressed by Canadian ignorance of the Pacific which eqnalled the whole land area of the Globe. Canadians knew the Mediterranean. It was the cradle of their culture. They knew the Atlantic, it had been the main highway of their commerce, but they were still unaware of the importance of the Pacific. Even the United States was unaware of it until the Spanish war, .the acquisition of Pacific .territory and the foresight of Roosevelt, had drawn attention to the fact that Asia meant more than Europe to the future of this continent.
I read Mr. Nelson's opinion merely to show you what great possibilities there are for Canada in connection with trade over the Pacific. This year Canada exported 14,000,000 bushels of wheat to the Orient. Two years ago there was no export to that part of the world, and the western provinces were in a bad position with regard to the shipment of wheat. We found that other countries had to ship only a distance of 400 or 500 miles to the seaboard, but we had to take it across the continent. To-day we find as China and Japan are learning to use wheat the western provinces of this country are going to be in an enviable position-one of the best positions-in regard to the shipment of wheat, because they will be able to ship a large part of it straight across the ocean to the Orient. So that things are changed in western Canada, I hope for the good and welfare of all the Dominion.
The hon. member for Parry Sound (Mr. Arthurs) this afternoon advocated a tariff for the farmers. I hope that the agriculturists of this country will never fall for such a proposition, because it would be the undoing not only of the farmer but of the whole country. The United States might just as well say that it is the greatest free trade country in the world, as the hon. member says it is the greatest high tariff country. You find the coal fields in one part of the United States, the cotton belt in another part, the sugar cane and fruit in another district and the iron in another. The states are almost self-contained; they trade among themselves. We are not so situated. We have no cotton, sugar or oranges. The experiment which they are trying in the United States is proving expensive for the farmers. The farmers may be slow to learn, but they will learn that that policy is against their interests, and I hope the agriculturists of this country will never listen to protectionist arguments. I admit that the right hon. leader of the opposition, by his power of debate and his great ability, may make some inroads among the people with his line of argument; there is no doubt about that. But we must gain our experience from that of the United States, and it is a good thing for this country that their policy is going



The Budget-Mr. Tobin (Wetaskimn)
to fail before there is a possibility of its being adopted in Canada. That fact will save us if nothing else will.
The prosperity and success of all interests in the east, both commercial and financial, depend first upon the western crop, second upon transportation and markets, and third upon the price paid for the various manufactured goods received in exchange for those products. Those who do not understand the position should come out west and see the needs of that country. The pioneer farmer of the west, will start probably with an axe, -not much more-later on he will have a walking plough, then a riding plough and eventually he may reach the stage of gasoline power. His demands are never complete. If you allow the farmers of the west to become prosperous, I can assure hon. members listening to me to-night that there need be no fear of the rest of the Dominion, because they must trade; they are great buyers. They have put all their profits, up to the present at least, into some other commodity. If the west produces hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of products the people there do not deposit that money in the bank; they spend it and will continue to spend it for many years to come. Upon the prosperity of western Canada, therefore, largely depends the prosperity of all the other parts of Canada.
The enacting of the legislation promised in the Speech from the Throne means encouragement and inspiration to all parts of Canada. Some of this legislation has reached the stage where there can be little doubt that it will be passed by this House, and I desire briefly to refer to it. I mention first the revaluation of soldier settler lands. In the district I represent there are many soldier settlers and they have wanted this legislation for a number of years. Some of them have left the land, but others have carried on manfully and are doing well under the difficulties of their present position. They will not expect every detail to be made right at once; it cannot be done. I think the attitude of the Minister of the Interior (Mr. Stewart), who presented the bill for the soldier settlers, must be looked upon favourably by hon. members of this House in that he tried to make changes suggested by the opposition and showed a desire to make the measure conform with the wishes of all parties, as he himself stated in this House. He wanted to satisfy all the people in the country by this soldier settler bill. I cannot see that the bill has been improved very much by the changes, but the minister has shown the right disposition. I am glad that there is to be a

revaluation of the soldier settler land. I was pleased that during the debate no one took any position adverse to the measure; nobody said to the opposition, "This is all your doing, the trouble was caused by you." I am sure the soldier settlers will be glad to see this bill become law.
The old age pension bill is the highest type of legislation and will be welcomed by all fairminded people. It is our moral duty to see that it becomes law.
Then we have the amendment to the Penitentiaries Act, under which all inmates of penitentiaries are to be allowed to do useful work, apart of the proceeds of that work, I understand, to go to the dependents of the inmate, if he has any; otherwise to be kept in trust for himself. This move by the government is a wise one. When inmates of a penitentiary are permitted to do useful work which agrees with them mentally, work that they know something about, they will not have time to reflect on their misdoings; they will not feel that the world is trying to take vengeance on them, and in many cases they will become reformed. There is some good in all people, and this reform will mean much. It is humanitarian and it is right. I am glad that this matter has been brought before the House, and the hon. member (Miss Macphail) deserves to be congratulated on her move in this direction.
I wish to make a few brief references to my own province and to conditions prevailing there. I suppose I need not tell the House that at the present time there is 9 p.m. an oil boom in Alberta. While we do not want unreasonable booms, I believe there are good prospects of finding petroleum in that province in large paying quantities, and I suggest to the government that they should take a part in helping to bring about a realization of our hopes in this respect. Every year large tolls are paid by Alberta to the Dominion in permit fees. In order to give you an idea of the amount of those fees I will place them on record:	The total fees for the last current
year were $454,911. In April last it was $2,944; in May $6,000 odd; in June $1,000. and for March this year the figure stood at $64,000.
I would suggest to the government that they do one of two things: either give bonuses for the production of oil, say for one or more producing wells in the north of the province and one or more in the south, or themselves drill wells in these sections. There is always a suspicion, when strangers drill for pil, that the intention is not to market the product
28*7

The Budget-Mr. Tobin (Wetaskiwinj
immediately but to hold it for speculative purposes. In my opinion the government could stimulate oil production in Alberta and it would mean a good deal to the Dominion at large. We firmly believe that there is oil in the province and I hope that the minister will act on the suggestion I have made.
As regards the cattle situation in Alberta, there is some complaint on the ground of duplication of fees. The cattle market is not very attractive to-day, as the prices are low and the farmer has altogether too many tolls to pay to get any profit out of the business. In the first place he must of course meet transportation charges, and besides this he has to pay feed and auction bills. He complains that at the first town into which he takes his cattle he must pay a veterinary surgeon to examine the stock, and if he ships them through to Winnipeg they must be examined a second time at Calgary or Edmonton. Very frequently there is only one veterinary to be found especially in a small town, a good deal of trouble being entailed hunting him up. Then there is the condemnation insurance, as I believe it is termed. When the farmer sells his cattle at the stockyard he pays fifty cents per $100 by way of insurance, the argument being that though the animals may be in good condition at the time of sale they may afterwards be found to be diseased. I do not see why the farmer should be expected to comply with a condition of this kind which does not obtain in any other business. When you buy an article from a merchant he does not give you a fee by way of guarantee that you will find nothing wrong with your purchase when you have taken it home. In my opinion this condemnation insurance should be abandoned. The people do not know whether the government is running the thing or whether the stockyards are in control of it. I understand that the entire fee is used for administrative purposes, but this notwithstanding, I contend that it should not be charged at all. It may be said, I know, that if the fee were not paid the farmer would possibly receive a lower price for his cattle, but I do not think that this contention is sound. At all events it is an unwarrantable impost.
I come now to a subject which is of considerable importance to the province of Alberta, namely, fox farming. In Alberta the people are finding it necessary to engage in other things besides the growing of wheat. They are going in for gardening and they have made a success of the raising of bush fruits. It has been demonstrated at the experi-H011-182f
mental stations in the province that such things as currants, gooseberries and raspberries may be grown in Alberta just as well as anywhere else. The people are learning too, to beautify their homes horticulturally and in many other ways. In the raising of foxes they have an industry that holds out considerable promise for the future, but there is one anomaly to which I would call the attention of the government. When the fox farmers of Alberta want an inspector to examine their foundation stock they are obliged in most cases to send to Prince Edward Island, which is a considerable distance away. That is one of their chief complaints. It may be of interest to the House to know how many inspectors there are in the fox industry throughout the Dominion. The inspectors, who I may bbserve in passing are obliged to put in a week's special training in Ottawa, are allocated to the provinces respectively as follows: British Columbia one, Saskatchewan one, Manitoba, one, Ontario, four; Quebec, one; New Brunswick, four; Nova Scotia, one; and Prince Edward Island, thirteen. It will be observed that Alberta has not even one. This may seem a trivial matter, but when it is remembered that an inspector has to come, as is usually the case, all the way from Prince Edward Island to examine foxes in Alberta it will be seen that an injustice is done that province. Last year about 1,310 foxes were examined in the province. The fox ranchers are therefore anxious to have inspectors located right on the ground. I may mention that the fox that brought the most money in Canada in any year was one that had been raised in Alberta. The value of foxes raised in the province last year for breeding purposes and pelts amounted to something like $6,000,000. The bulk of the product went to the United States, although a good deal of it is shipped to Europe. I understand that the fox industry yields the largest revenue of any in Prince Edward Island.
Another matter of importance I want to refer to before concluding. We have in the province of Alberta some beautiful lakes, many of them being attractive resorts with hundreds of cottages all around. I might mention Gull lake for instance. I think the Dominion government might very well supply suitable fish for propagation in these lakes, so as to produce fish, as well as provide good sport at these points. Pigeon, Conjuring and Gull lakes in my district are particularly interesting and something should certainly be done in this regard to improve them as resorts and to make them attractive to fishermen.
2868	COMMONS
The Budget-Mr. Tobin (Wetaskiwin)
I come now to the question of rural mail delivery, and in this connection I am happy to be able to say that Ontario is not overlooked. Let me give the number of mail routes in each province together with figures showing the cost. In 1924, according to the report issued on January 1, 1925, there were 176 rural mail deliveries in Prince Edward Island at a total cost of $95,172; in Nova Scotia, 165 at a cost of $107,348; in New Brunswick, 279 at a cost of $154,534; in Manitoba, 98 at a cost of $60,122; in Saskatchewan, 80 at a cost of $44,436; in Alberta, 98 at a cost of $53,405; in Ontario, 1,990 at a cost of $1,584,433.
Mr. NEILL. Have you the figures for British Columbia?


Stanley Gilbert Tobin: Yes 67 deliveries at a cost of $53,405. Now, ' if you want to encourage immigration to the west and retain the people already there, give them some of the things that make rural life worth while. Certainly these rural mail deliveries are essential. In Ontario the towns are close together and there are in addition in many parts, mail carriers. In the west our towns are far apart, and we have not that convenience. Surely there should be a fair ratio between the west and the east in the number of rural mail deliveries. I think we should have rural mail deliveries in Alberta, Saskatchewan and the other provinces on at least an equal basis. There are more rural mail deliveries and at a greater cost in Ontario than in all the other provinces combined. Is that because the parliament buildings are in Ontario? Is that because deputations such as we saw here last week protesting against any reduction in the automobile duties come here during the session? If this is the centre of propaganda such as that, it seems to me that these buildings should be placed out in the prairies where the air is clear.


An hon. MEMBER:: Winnipeg.


Stanley Gilbert Tobin: Someone suggests Winnipeg. I think somewhere in Alberta would be much better. I say again- and I am looking at the Minister of Public Works, who I think will carry what I am saying to the right place; he generally does-we want more rural mail deliveries in Alberta. I give the House notice that I shall push this matter further at the right time and place.
There is one other thing I wish to call to the attention of the House. I refer to the permit system on grain moving westward. You know, Mr. Speaker, that when we succeeded in getting a large measure of equal-

ization of freight rates the transportation companies put on what they call a "permit" system, under which a farmer could not ship his grain westward unless he had bottoms at the coast to take his grain. Therefore, the grain dealers bought his grain at the Fort William price and naturally where it is to their advantage, they get the lower freight rate and any premium at Vancouver. That has taken place again this year. There was a partial reason for it in that a large amount of our grain was damp. I hope I can get the eye of the hon. member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Stevens), for I know he will take an interest in this matter and back me up. I want his support.


Henry Herbert Stevens: I agree entirely with my hon. friend.


Stanley Gilbert Tobin: I am glad to hear that, for if I can get the other side to agree with me I am succeeding. A reference to the statistics will show that in the last week of March this year the premium on grain westward was 2-4/5 cents a bushel, and a spread in the freight rates was nearly 3 cents. But some of the grain was damp, the permit system was t re-introduced, this held up the movement, and therefore the farmer lost this spread because the grain dealers bought the grain at the Fort William price and naturally when it is to their advantage shipped it westward, thus getting the premium themselves. It is not right. It looks very much to the farmer like a swindle, to use a sinister word. The farmer to-day want3 the privilege of taking his grain to the elevator, asking the price at Fort William or Vancouver, and then directing that his grain be sent either east or west according as the trade is in his favour. Why not give him this privilege. If the drying facilities are not sufficient, they should be supplied.
Then again, Sir, a reference to the statistics which I have already quoted will show that the price of screenings this year varied from $9 to $12 a ton at Vancouver, and only from $3 to $5 a ton at Fort William. I wish to call the attention of my hon. friend from Vancouver Centre to this also. That is what the farmer is losing, and somebody is the gainer. I want the eye and ear of the Progressive party with respect to this. A spread of a cent a bushel in price is big, but a spread of two cents or more is tremendous. In addition, the farmer also loses the difference in freight.
Any man representing Alberta should be proud of his province. It is a vast rolling prairie, with forests in certain parts, well

The Budget-Mr. Edwards (Frontenac)
watered with streams and lakes, possessing a rich soil, and shielded and sheltered by the great Rocky mountains. Nature has endowed the province with gas and coal and we do not know what other minerals, and in all we have about the best climate of the whole Dominion.
Mr, NEILL: Question.


Stanley Gilbert Tobin: Let me give some further particulars of Alberta. The province has an area of 161,872,000 acres. Of this, 97,123,000 acres represents arable land, and we have under cultivation 29,293,053 acres, leaving unoccupied arable land of an acreage of 67,829,947. In a word, we have the greatest acreage of unoccupied arable land of any province, and we are proud to think that this will some day be brought under cultivation and benefit the whole Dominion. Recently our local paper in Wetaskiwin reprinted an article from the Toronto Globe, entitled, "A Province to be Envied," and I will read it for the benefit of hon. members:
With the transfer from Dominion authority to Alberta of the natural resources of that province, the country will observe with particu.hr interest the progress made in development. Alberta coal has already made a reputation, but probably few people realize that it represents 14 per cent of the estimated coal reserves of the world, 72 per cent, of those of the British Empire and that Alberta cool mines represent an investment of more than $50,000,COO. Something is known of the existence of petroleum fields, and interest is re-awakened by recent publication of a report made by Dr. Hume of the geological suivey. When it is considered that besides the coal deposits, 80,000 square miles of the province have petrcleun. possibilities, and that, besides, Alberta leads the Dominion in the production of natural gas, it is evident that the wealth of this young province passes far beyond the sphere of agriculture.
Even the most ambitious province shouild be satisfied with 72,000,000 acres of land capable of agricultural development, an area large enough t. contain the population of the British Isles, but with varied and rich natural resources it has within itself the potentialities of a cosmopolitan nation. Behind the prairies, it is estimated, are 60,000 square miles of merchantable timber. For scores of miles along the Athabasca river are bituminous sands suitable for paving the streets of future cities. Extensive shade and clay deposits lie in the southeast. It has building stone, salt and bentonite. Its fisheries are worth hundreds of thousands of dollars per year. And what may be beneath the surface in addition +o the known resources may offer almost untold possibilities foi development.
An inland empire of such vastness, yet with a population of only 600,000, Alberta is in an enviable position to make its imprint dominant on the future map of Canada.	*
In conclusion, Sir, I wish to thank you and the House for the courtesy and attention which you have accorded me. I had no intention of occupying the time of the House at any great length, but the subject I have been dealing with must be my excuse.


John Wesley Edwards: Mr. Speaker, the hon. gentleman who has just taken his seat (Mr. Tobin) informed us that the farmers of the west wanted windmills. I can at least appreciate the fact that there was a considerable reduction in the visible supply of those articles in Wetaskiwin when the hon. gentleman came to Ottawa. That, with the addition of the gas which he says exists in that province and which has no doubt permeated his system, will probably account for the length of his remarks and the variety of the subjects which he touched upon. I noted one remark of his in which he credited the government with bulldog determination. The bulldog has never been recognized as an animal remarkable for its intelligence, but it has always been credited with a disposition to hang on; consequently I suppose that is the reason for the reference. The hon. gentleman quoted Cobden as saying that a government fails which does not give relief to the humble. I suppose he had in mind the relief afforded by this government to the thousands of people who have left Canada to find work in the United States.
The hon. gentleman also referred to Mr. Henry Ford, and was evidently quite willing to accept Mr. Ford as an authority on the automobile question. I am not willing to accept Mr. Henry Ford as an authority on anything, even an automobile. The machine which bears his name is said to be an automobile; it is also said to be several other things, the names of which I need not enumerate this evening. So far as Henry Ford and his industry are concerned I might point out that he is in a different position from that of any other manufacturer in the world. He has a largely capitalized industry with a perfected organization; he has mass production, and I daresay he would be quite pleased to have free trade with all the world so far as automobiles are concerned. But Henry Ford is a man who has shown that he recognizes protection. I believe that in September 1915 he bought fifty acres of land in Ontario with the declared intention of building a tractor plant which was to employ 10,000 men. The government saw fit to remove the duty on tractors, with the result that Henry still has the land but the plant has not 'been erected. Henry Ford would never have established a factory in Canada if it had not been for protection. He thought he would supply the French trade from his factory in England, but France put a heavy duty on automobiles and Henry was obliged to put up a plant in France. He also built a plant in Ireland1, I believe, and in several other countries. When Mr. Ford
"	COMMONS
1 he Budget-Mr. Edwards (Frontenac)
established his plants in these various countries he thereby gave recognition to the policy of protection.
Mr. Ford is a man who has made a great success of life from the financial standpoint; he is among the wealthiest, if not the wealthiest, man in the world. But he has some peculiar ideas. I believe he launched at one time what was called a peace ship; then he had an idea for a "synthetic cow." Asked what his idea was, he said he was going to do away entirely with the four-legged animal. "Where are you going to get milk?" he was asked, to which he replied, "I am going to manufacture milk chemically to supply the public. There is no further need for cows." Henry's synthetic cow was going to solve the problem. So I say when we speak of Henry Ford and quote him, it is well to remember that we are quoting a man who, while he has made a great success of the particular business which carries his name, is recognized as possessing some very strange peculiarities.
The hon. gentleman made several references to other things. I am not a sufficiently well-trained mental acrobat to follow him in all his various peregrinations and wanderings, and I shall not attempt to do so. He referred to one or two things also mentioned by the Minister of Finance (Mr. Robb) to which I wish to give just a little attention.
The hon. gentleman and the Minister of Finance made reference to the national debt of Canada, and I would also like to say a word or two on that subject. In 1896 the national debt of this country was roughly $258,000,000. In 1011, when the Liberals went out of office, in round figures it amounted to $340,000,000; in other words, they had added $82,000,000 to that debt in fifteen years. Between 1911 and 1014 the debt was reduced by $6,700,000. Then the war came on with its tremendous costs, and by 1921 our debt was in round figures $2,350,000,000.- In 1925, according to the statements given by the Finance minister recently, it was $2,417,437,685 and on March 31 of this year amounted to $2,395,000,000. In connection with the national debt I wish to quote a statement made by the hon. member for West York (Sir Henry Drayton), who in 1921 was Finance minister. In presenting his budget that year he said:
If we deduct the bare cost of the war but charge up pensions, soldiers' civil reestablishment and interest on the war part of our debt, none of which we would have had but for the war, our debt to-day would be $115,000,000 less than in March 1914."
He also made this statement, which was never contradicted, which was accepted as a fact and is a fact:	The revenues for the

last year, he said, exceed the ordinary expenses of the country, including all pensions and all current war charges, by $69,400,000. I wish to add another statement made by him on that occasion. War obligations have been met, he said, and paid to the extent of $698,809,700. I quote that statement, Mr. Speaker, because I want to apply it to the debt of this country. I want people to understand what that debt means and how much of that debt was due to the war.
During the years 1917 to 1920 inclusive we put through in this House seventeen appropriation bills totalling $1,755,705,235. No amendment was moved to any of those bills, nor was a motion made to strike out one single dollar of those appropriations.
I wish to call attention also to how seme of this money was spent. We paid out in soldiers' gratuities, $164,000,000. May I add that that was a matter of expenditure dealt with by the Conservative government, and which was done with and settled and had not to be considered by this government after it took office. We also paid out $102,000,000 for soldiers' civil re-establishment; $90,000.000 for pensions; $80,000,000 for soldier land settlement; $7,000,000 for soldier insurance; $25,000,000 of a housing loan; $10,000,000 for technical education; a special grant to aid agriculture of $10,000,000; another grant for roads of $20,000,000; and our shipbuilding cost us some $30,000,000. The items I have enumerated total $538,000,000, and I want to emphasize this fact, that not one single dollar of that amount was challenged by any member of the House.
I want also to emphasize this fact, that many of the items to which I have referred, and which bore very heavily cn the exchequer of the country at that time, the present government has not been required to deal with because they were dealt with and settled before they came into office, so they were relieved of that burden.
I would also like to add that in the last three years of the Conservative regime, in 1919, 1920 and 1921, we collected in total receipts during those years a little over $1,098,000,000. In the next three years, 1922. 1923 and 1924, this government collected $1,191,000,000; that is to say, the present government, or the government in power after 1921, had in the first three years they were in office $100,000,000 more revenue to run the country with than their predecessors had in the last three years they were iD power.

The Budget-Mr. Edwards (Frontenac)
Again comparing the last three years of Conservative rule, taking in the year 1921, with the first three years under the King government, the King government collected in special ,war revenue taxes over $234,500,000 more in the first three years they were in office than the Conservative government collected in the last three years they were in office.
When you take these facts into consideration, one wonders that the Finance minister was not able in presenting his budget to declare a larger surplus than he has declared.
I shall not go into the reasons for that; they are many and various. Numerous commissions were appointed at very heavy cost to the country. An elevator was built at Prince Rupert which has never yet been used- built for the purpose of electing a government supporter for that constituency; wharves were built on this river and on that, for a like purpose. The reason why the government was not able to make a better showing in regard to a reduction in the debt was because of extravagance and waste of public moneys.
Another matter which was referred to by the Minister of Finance was the favourable balance of trade. I should like to refer to that for a moment. The hon. Minister of Finance is not in his place at the moment, but I think I am correctly interpreting his language when I say that he spoke of the favourable balance of trade with a good deal of satisfaction. It has been referred to by other speakers on that side of the House also with a good deal of satisfaction. They seemed pleased with the fact that we had a favourable balance of trade. If the Minister of Finance were here, I would put to him this question.


An hon. MEMBER:: Here he is.


John Wesley Edwards: I am very glad he has come in. I was just stating that in presenting his budget the Finance minister 'has apparently taken a good deal of satisfaction from the fact that we closed last year with a very substantial favourable balance of trade. The question which I was going to ask was this:	Does he consider a favourable
balance of trade for this country an indication of prosperity?


Mr. ROBB:: Mr. Speaker, in 1921 we had an unfavourable balance of trade and no person will say that we had prosperity at that time.


John Wesley Edwards: The hon. gentleman, of course, has not answered the question. I was a little doubtful when I put it to him whether he would answer it. I will
[DOT]ask him again:	Does he think that a favourable balance of trade for this country is an indication of Canada's prosperity? Would he regard an unfavourable balance of trade as an indication that Canada was not prosperous?
I can understand, I think, what is passing through his mind. He is a little wary. He is almost Scotch, like my hon. friend from Brandon (Mr. Forke), when it comes to answering questions. This is the point, Mr. Speaker:	Where do we get our favourable
balance of trade? If the hon. gentleman says that a favourable balance of trade is an indication of our prosperity, then, per contra, he says that an unfavourable balance of trade is just the opposite, but for years we have had an unfavourable balance of trade as between Canada and the United States. The hon. gentleman knows that very well. He also knows the reason why we had that unfavourable balance of trade. It was because of the asinine policy of this government in not properly protecting the industries of this country, thereby enabling the United States to flood this country with their products, to the detriment of our people. That is the point I want him to consider. This matter has been considered by finance ministers before. I can quote the words of an acting finance minister who, in speaking of the unfavourable balance of trade as between Canada and the United States, said that something should be done to rectify that situation, that we should either buy less from the United States or sell more to the United States. I say that that is an unfavourable condition of affairs which exists between Canada and the United States, and has existed for years, and that it is not in the interests of thi3 country, but is in the interests of the United States. One fault I have to find with the government to-day is that their tariff is framed not along sane, reasonable and national lines for the benefit of Canada, but for the benefit of the United States of America. In the last ten years, Mr. Speaker, the United States have sold over two billion dollars' worth more to Canada than Canada has sold to that country. I take the ground that at least a part of that two billion dollars may be regarded as so much of a mortgage on this Dominion.
We have had, Mr. Speaker, some recent additions to the ranks of this remnant of a government. It should have some further additions before it could really be called a government. My hon. friend who has just taken his seat said that the budget was "a message to the people from a people's government."


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Hear, hear.
*	COMMONS
The Budget-Mr. Edwards (Frontenac)


John Wesley Edwards: Some hon. members opposite say "hear, hear" to that. A message from a people's government! From a government which in the last election polled 40.1 per cent of the popular vote! A people's government! A government which, with the addition of its camouflaged allies over to the left, represents only 46.5 of the popular vote.


Mr. JACOBS:: Will the hon. gentleman permit a question?


John Wesley Edwards: I would permit my hon. friend almost anything.


Samuel William Jacobs: In what respect are the Progressives "camouflaged allies"?


John Wesley Edwards: Wei!, Mr. Speaker, I guess I will have to retract my former statement and thank my hon. friend for his suggestion. It is perhaps not correct to cal] them camouflaged Grits. We can leave out the word "camouflaged" and I think we will be more correct. However, it is stretching the imagination very far to cal] this "a people's government" composed of a party or of two parties-yes, three parties- An hon. MEMBER: Four parties.


John Wesley Edwards: Are there four? Well, that makes a four-ring political circus. I thought it was only a threc-nr.g one.
An hon,. MEMBER: No, there are actually five.


John Wesley Edwards: But the two main rings of the circus, at all events, are composed of those representatives immediately opposite me, and those to my immediate left represented by that hon. gentleman who has so successfully played the part of Cincinnatus ever since he came into this parliament. The party across the way came back with 30,000 less of the popular vote than they had in the former election, while the so-called Progressive party, or what is left of it, came back with 486,788 less of the popular vote than they had before. And these two, making the principal combination, are what my hon. friend from ^ Wetaskiwin calls "the people's government." The people's government!
After the election of 1925 the right hon. Prime Minister, having gone down to defeat with about half of his cabinet, looking round to find some place that would accept him and send him back to this House, sent his faithful henchmen out over the province of Ontario. Inquiries were made here and there but without success.
Providence created a vacancy in the county of Bagot but they would not have him represent a county in Quebec.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


John Wesley Edwards: Not as a
member of a constituency, oh, no. In this dilemma, and when he was at his wit's end as to where he was going to get at seat, he received a message from a constituency in the northern part of Saskatchewan which was very specially interested in the construction of a railway. They made a proposition to the Prime Minister. They said:	If you will
build the Hudson Bay railway for us we will provide you with a Prince Albert to cover the seat you lost on the 29th of October. The cost of the garment was not going to come out of the Prime Minister's pocket, and he was not disposed to haggle about the price. The price has been variously estimated at anywhere from twenty to forty million dollars. I do not know what it will cost, but I will say this:	It is the biggest price that was ever
paid for a coat in the history of the world. Even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed in anything so expensive as that Prince Albert is or likely will be. So expensive a coat will it be that when the right hon. Prime Minister is through with it he ought to send it down for inclusion among the relics in the archives.
A short time ago there was introduced into this House a very fine gentleman, the Minister of Labour (Mr. Elliott). I am not disposed to add anything to the difficulties of the Minister of Labour. He is the only cabinet minister representing the province of Ontario, and he has had the responsibility for a great many portfolios placed upon his-shoulders. His difficulties are many, but 1 wish him well. Whatever his qualifications may be to fill the various offices in which he has been placed, at least he has established a reputation for courage. The hon. Minister ot Labour proved himself a brave man when he came into that cabinet of derelicts.
There is another hon. gentleman who has come into this House from another part of Canada. He is sometimes referred to as "The Crown Prince of Saskatchewan."


Mr. VALLANCE:: By whom?


John Wesley Edwards: I think it
was by the hon. member for South Huron (Mr. McMillan), "The Crown Prince of Saskatchewan" and heir-apparent to a very wobbly throne. Now, I am not disposed to be quite so friendly to the Minister of Railways as I was to the Minister of Labour, and the reason for that attitude is because the Minister of Railways has been very hostile to the province of Ontario. He challenged, a few days ago, the statement made by the hon..

The Budget-Mr. Edwards (Frontenac)
member for Fort William (Mr. Manion). He stated that he had not said that he wanted to make the people of Ontario suffer. No, that was not correct; but he did admit that under oath he stated that his idea was to make the people of Ontario take a dose, and a full dose, of their own medicine.


Mr. WARD:: Hear, hear.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


Hewitt Bostock: Order.


John Wesley Edwards: That remark did not come out very distinctly, although it was heard on the other side of the House. I do not know whether the hon. gentleman meant it or not. Would he mind rising and stating what his constituency is, or will some other hon. gentleman do that for him? He should not be ashamed of it.


Henry Herbert Stevens: It was the hon. member
for Dauphin (Mr. Ward).
Mr. EDWARDS (Frontenac); The hon. member for Dauphin, Manitoba, joins with the Minister of Railways in saying that he wants to punish the people of Ontario-for that i3 what it means-by imposinga good, steep, prohibitive duty on American coal and then to let the Canadian National Railways charge the fair freight rate for 'hauling it tr. them. It is the first time in history that the eastern people have been in the position to take a dose of their own medicine, and I think they should be allowed to take it to the fuM.


William John Ward: Hear, hear.


John Wesley Edwards: May I ask the hon. member for Dauphin (Mr. Ward) if in saying, " hear, hear " he was also speaking ironically? The Minister of Railways excused his utterance by saying that he spoke ironically. The minister was on oath at the time. Well, if he wants the people of this country to regard him as a man who on oath speaks in that way, that is his business. The dictionary gives a definition of " irony " and " ironical " as follows:
Expression of one's .meaning by language of opposite or different tendency.
Is that what the hon. member meant when he was under oath,-to use words expressing the opposite to what he intended? A further definition is:
Simulated ignorance to confute opponents.
We all know the Minister of Railways is a very wise man. He has told us so himself. He ought to know, if anybody knows; wisdom is oozing out of every pore of his anatomy. You have only to look at him to see how wise he is, and if you cannot get a sufficient idea
of his consummate wisdom by looking at him, look at his record in the west and see how wise he has been in his devious ways in politics and political elections. From what I have been able to see of the Minister of Railways since he came into this House, he does not require, on any of the big questions coming up here, to simulate ignorance for the purpose of confuting any of his opponents. Simulation is absolutely unnecessary.
The hon. member for East Algoma (Mr. Nicholson) made some reference to the war in his speech the other day. He referred to the fact that our men had gone over there to fight to save France and Belgium, and added that the sacrifice meant more than that. The hon. member for Southeast Grey (Miss Macphail) challenged that statement and said:
Is the hon. gentleman willing, then, not only to support, but if possible to strengthen a policy that can only perpetuate international friction and discord ?
The hon. member for Southeast Grey in that sentence was expressing her adherence to the policy of free trade. She made that quite clear in a further expression a little later on, when she said:
Will the 'hon. member admit, that what caused the late war causes alt wars? Will he admit that the prime cause was an economic one, and that the protection of women and children was no part of it?
The hon. member for East Algoma suffered, as you did, Mr. Speaker, irreparable loss in that war. There were others throughout the country who also suffered irreparable loss, in many cases the loss of an only son. There was only one thought, it seems to me, which would tend to brighten the dark cloud of sorrow that hangs over many homes which lost an only son in the war, and that is the thought that the boys who went over there, went there to fight in a just cause; that they gave their lives in defence of France and Belgium, in defence of our empire and of our country, and in defence of the civilization of centuries, the hon. member for Southeast Grey to the contrary notwithstanding.


Mr. FORKE:: The hon. member evidently
has not much patriotism when he makes a speech such as he is making now.
Mr. EDWARDS (Frontenac); My hon. friend has a right to his opinion. I am not
vaunting my patriotism. There are different ways, evidently, of showing one's patriotism.


Robert Forke: I would suggest that the hon. member for Frontenac-Addington has a poor way of showing it when he stands up and makes such a speech as he is making now.
2S74
1 he Budget-Mr. Edwards (Frontenac)


John Wesley Edwards: The high-minded gentleman from the west who got up and made that statement does not hesitate t,o pose in this House as an independent, but he has not an independent thought in his mind-a man who has been known ever since he entered public life as a party man, who has camouflaged under the name of Progressive, and who, I say, has represented himself as an independent when everybody in this country knows that it is only camouflage. Why does he rise now in defence of the hon. member for Southeast Grey? What have I said further than to quote the hon. member's own words? Am I to understand from the interruption of my hon. friend that he objects to my stating that the boys who gave their lives in the war were fighting in defence of France and Belgium, our empire, our country and our civilization? That is what I said when he rose, evidently in a passion. We all know the hon. member for Southeast Grey will vote the way he wants her to every time.


Robert Forke: No doubt about that.


John Wesley Edwards: It is not necessary for the hon. member to worry himself to get into her good graces. He is in her good graces already and will always be in that position. She will vote whatever way the hon. member for Brandon wishes, as she always has.
Allow me to refer to the statement made by the hon. member for Southeast Grey. That hon. member says that the cause of the war was economic and that the defence of women and children played no part whatever in it. She implies also, and practically asserts, that if we had no tariffs we would have no wars, and that protective tariffs induce and tend to bring about war. Does my hon. friend say "hear, hear" in support of that? Does the hon. member endorse that statement? He is not so vociferous just now.


Robert Forke: I object.


John Wesley Edwards: Sit down.


Robert Forke: I rise to a point of order. The hon. member is putting words in my mouth that I did not utter.


Mr. HANSON:: He did not put any words in the hon. member's mouth.


John Wesley Edwards: That may
be a point of order, but I do not know what it is. I will say this; that if ever I put words m the hon. gentleman's mouth, when he utters them they will be more sensible than any words he ever uttered. Are we to understand
[Mr. Forke.J
from this argument of the hon. member for Southeast Grey, endorsed by the 10 p.m. hon. member for Brandon, that it was the free trade policy of England that induced Germany to go to war? Or was it the tariff that little Belgium had against Germany that so incensed Germany that she sent her troops over to that little country, killing women and children and devastating the country? Was that what led to the war? I cannot imagine free trade nonsense being carried to a greater extreme than it was by the hon. member for Southeast Grey.


Mr. WOODSWORTH:: Is the hon. member aware that the League of Nations is discussing the question how far tariffs are a cause of war and whether the removal of some of the tariffs now in force in Europe might not help to bring about a peacefui settlement of the disputes over there?


John Wesley Edwards: Can the
hon. member tell me what their decision was?


James Shaver Woodsworth: This is one of the
matters which they are considering.


John Wesley Edwards: It has not
been decided yet, has it? Well there are a good many things discussed by the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Woodsworth) that, have not yet been settled, and for the good of Canada I hope to God that a great many of the things he has discussed will never be decided the way he wants them. We have had and we have in this country and in the House two or three hon. members who are here because they rely upon disturbed conditions and unrest to return them. We have those who depend upon, and whose chief support comes from, men out of work and women and children who are hungry. That is why these members believe in a tariff policy which will destroy our factories and industries and throw people out of work. Without that they would have no audience to talk to; they would have no basis upon which to work. We have had, Mr. Speaker, entirely too much socialistic and communistic claptrap in this country, and it was that sort of propaganda that caused the revolution in Winnipeg. I for one, therefore, desire to denounce anyone who is ever ready to flout the flag, to sneer at loyalty and to level adverse criticism at anything British, but whose mouth is always filled with praise of bolshevik Russia, the most immoral, the most debased, and the rottenest country on the face of the globe to-day.

' The Budget-Mr. Edwards (Frontenac)


James Shaver Woodsworth: I do not know
whether it was because of my interruption-


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order.


James Shaver Woodsworth: I rise to a point
of order. If the hon. member is referring to me in such absolutely wild statements as he has been making I must resent the references and ask that he withdraw it.


John Wesley Edwards: I ask your
protection, Mr. Speaker.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


John Wesley Edwards: I mean, of
course, from the standpoint of the rules of the House. My hon. friends opposite who sat in this House with me in previous years know me sufficiently well to realize that I do not ask for quarter from any of them, just as I do not give any. When I refer directly to the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre he may rise to a point of order, but he has no right to assume that I am referring to him, however correct his assumption may be.


James Shaver Woodsworth: I do rise to a
point of order. If the hon. gentleman implies that he was referring to me in the language he used a moment ago, I must ask that he withdraw the statements he made then.


John Wesley Edwards: The first
thing the hon. member will have to do will be to establish the fact that I was referring to him.


James Shaver Woodsworth: If that is the case
there is nothing to be said.


John Wesley Edwards: My hon. friend is becoming sensible.
An hon*.,MEMBER:	He has been listening to you.


John Wesley Edwards: Perhaps
you might imbibe a little wit, too; everybody will agree that you need it.
The budget, Mr. Speaker, is always a matter of great public interest, especially to those whose large investments may be sacrificed and those whose daily bread may be jeopardized by the stroke of a pen. There has been a good deal of misrepresentation of the Conservative party in regard to the tariff. I wish therefore for a few minutes to discuss the subject, going back a little way in history.
Between 1878 and 1896 we had a protective tariff in Canada known as the National Policy. Having regard to the threats made by the 'Liberal party for eighteen years while
out of office there was a good deal of apprehension as to what they would do on coming into power. The Laurier government came into office in 1896 and the people found that Liberals in office were a different sort of people from Liberals out of office. At all events, fortunately for the country, that party maintained the policy and principle of protection throughout the fifteen years they were in power. There is absolutely not the shadow of a doubt about that. They went out of office in 1911. The issue in that election was the reciprocity pact, but even in proposing reciprocity the Liberal party did not depart from the principle of protection in relation to manufacturers. Between 1911 and 1921 the Conservative and Union governments still maintained the principle and policy of protection, and that principle and policy may be said to have been carried out by the present government, fairly well at least, up to the session of 1923, when the Right Hon. W. S. Fielding presented his last budget to parliament. In that year, in delivering his budget, the Hon. Mr. Fielding said:
There is a thought which does not receive as much consideration as I think sometimes it should be given in public discussions, and that is the desirability of somethin" like tariff stability. Business men do not like to be always threatened with changes in the
tariff....The tariff as it will be when the changes
proposed to-day come into effect will be a moderate tariff and probably as low as the country can afford to have under present conditions. Of course we cannot expect that it will be satisfactory to everybody. It will not meet the desires of those who would rigidly apply the principles of free trade. It will not meet the wish of the advocates of high protection.
The leader of the opposition at this point interjected:
It comes pretty close to it.
Mr. Fielding went on:
I think the country should be content to accept the tariff as it will now stand as one as fair and reasonable as can be prepared under all the circumstances, and business men should be able to carry on the various enterprises without the fear of being soon disturbed by further changes.
That was an announcement on the part of a man who for some seventeen or eighteen years had occupied the position of finance minister of the Dominion, and however much any of us may have differed from him politically, I think I am putting it correctly when I say that the Right Hon. W. S. Fielding was respected from one end of Canada to the other by those of his own political party and also by those who were opposed to him politically. I think I am also correct in stating that it was because he and Sir Lomer Gouin were then members of the government that the wreckers, represented by the hon. member
2876	COMMONS
The Budget-Mr. Edwards (Frontenac)
for Brandon, were unable to get what they wanted. But with the retirement of those two men from the government there was not much left that you could call a government. It was only a makeshift of a government even then; it is still less now.
On the occasion of the introduction of the oudget of 1923 the hon. member for Brandon moved a resolution in amendment, in which I find these words:
Whereas the tariff policy of the government, as indicated by the Minister of Finance in his budget speech, and particularly his pronouncement in favour of tariff stability at existing rates, and the consequent intimation that the government contemplates no further appreciable tariff reduction, constitutes a repudiation of the tariff planks in the Liberal platform of 1919 and is inconsistent with the Finance Minister's statement last' session that the changes then made were a step in the right direction.
So we see in these words of the hon. member for Brandon that stability of tariffs is something to which he apparently objects. He said further:
And whereas the fiscal policy of the government as now brought down is based on the principle of protection, and in this respect is indistinguishable from that of their predecessors in office.
I quote this because it bears out my statement made a moment ago that during the whole time of the Laurier government's tenure of office and down to 1923 the principles of the national policy as laid down by the Conservatives were adhered to by the Liberals. There is another reference here which will bear reading in the light of the attitude now taken by the hon. member for Brandon in regard to the Speech from the Throne. He said:
Therefore, be it resoflved:	That while recognizing
that changes in the fiscal policy should be made in such a way as to give industries affected a reasonable opportunity for readjustment, this House is of the opinion that the principle of protection as a basis for fiscal policy in Canada is unsound, and that every claim for protection should be heard publicly before a special committee of parliament.
So at that time the hon. gentleman apparently thought that industries affected should have a reasonable opportunity for adjustment. Has any such opportunity been given to the automobile industry? The hon. gentleman in his resolution also stated his belief that where an industry is affected it should be heard publicly before a special committee of parliament. Well, we have now the Tariff Advisory Board. I should like to know from the government if they have lost faith so soon in this board of their own creation. If they still have faith in it, why did they not carry out the pledge given in the Speech from the Throne, that all industries would have an opportunity of placing their case before this 
board, and that on the facts thus adduced parliament would act? Mr. Speaker, I make this statement that since the Address in reply to the Speech from the Throne was passed, this House stands committed to carrying it into effect. Those who voted for it certainly, and the members of the government more especially, were pledged by the adoption of that Speech from the Throne-which they framed and placed in the mouth of His Excellency-to carry it into effect; and I do not believe, Sir, that in the history of this or any other democratic country on the face of the globe there has ever been such a flagrant violation of solemn pledges given before the election and reiterated in the Speech from the Throne as this government has been guilty of in connection with the adjustment of duties brought down by the Minister of Finance in his budget speech. I say that every member, especially on that side of the House, as well as every member who sits to my left, is in honour pledged to vote against that part of the budget, because if he does not do so he is repudiating the vote that he gave in support of the Address, and is therefore violating his honour as a public man.
A word or two more, Mr. Speaker, in regard to protection. We have had free trade theorists and free trade faddists in the country and in this House. I suppose we always will have them here until the people put the matter right by leaving them at home. The late President McKinley said on one occasion, "Nothing is cheap which enforces idleness on our people." I should like that statement to sink into the minds of every member, especially of those who profess to follow free trade doctrine. "Nothing is cheap which enforces idleness on our people." And idleness has been enforced on our people by the attitude and course of this government to such an extent that hundreds of thousands of our young men have been forced to go across the line to seek employment. The free trade theorists base their conclusions on two cardinal errors: first, that the burden of an import duty must fall upon the consumer; second, that a tariff must increase the cost of the article taxed. Both assumptions have been proved by experience and history to be absolutely false. The free trade theorist has a pet conundrum which he frequently brings forward when he seeks to annihilate his opponent: how can you cheapen an article by taxing it? I wonder if any hon. gentleman will carry his free trade ideas far enough to endorse that statement.
There are two distinct classes of import duties: Those levied on articles which are

The Budget-Mr. Edwards (Frontenac)
not and cannot be produced in Canada, for example, tea, coffee and cocoa; and those levied on articles which are or can be produced in Canada. In the first class the entire supply is imported and there is no possibility _ of competition between the dutiable article and the article produced here. In such case3 the duty is added to the price, subject however to such modifications as may be brought about 'by the use of substitutes. In the second ciass there are both inside and outside sources of supply. That produced at home is duty free; that imported bears a duty, and the duty on the imported article has the effect of encouraging the increased production of the duty free article supplied at home. I answer the conundrum, therefore, in this way: The article cannot be cheapened by taxing the whole available supply, but is inevitably made dearer. It is perfectly possible, however, and history and experience have proved it to be true, that taxing a part of the supply as is done by a protective tariff may cheapen the article by encouraging increased production of that part which is duty free because produced at home.
Let me illustrate that contention by some indisputable facts. In 1883 the duty on agricultural implements was raised to 35 per cent. Between 1886 and 1890 we had_ nineteen factories in Ontario alone making binders, as against nine factories in the same line of business in the United States. Did binders go up in price? On the contrary, the competition in Ontario was so keen that many of the firms went out of business because of the low price of the article they were selling. I heard it argued in this House by the Hon. Mr. Crerar, on one occasion, that the duty imposed obliged the consumer to pay the amount of that duty extra, not only on the imported article but on similar articles made in this country. Supposing, for instance, there was a duty of S10 on an American mower coming into Canada. It was argued that the man in Canada who bought an American mower would have to pay $10 more because of the duty; but it was also argued that he would have to pay $10 more on a mower produced in Canada because of the duty. I wonder if any hon. gentleman in this House will endorse that argument. It has been presented here before, and I say it is absolutely fallacious. Canada produced some 280,000,000 pounds of butter last year, 95 per cent of which is consumed at home.


Mr. EVANS:: Will the hon. gentleman permit a question? If the duty did not raise the price of the mower manufactured in Canada why does the manufacturer need protection at all, or why does he ask for it?


John Wesley Edwards: That is a
fair question. In the first place I do not say that the imposition of a duty has no effect on the price; do not understand me as saying that. My statement was and is that the duty upon an article produced to some extent in this country is shared; a part of it may be paid by the consumer here and a part will be paid by the country from which the article comes. There the law of supply and demand will govern.
Why, Sir, if it is argued that the duty adds so much to the price of the article, on the 280,000,000 pounds of butter produced in this country, with a tariff of 4 cents, the farmers obtain every year $11,200,000 more for their butter than they otherwise would receive. If you can make me believe that I will immediately advocate the raising of our duty on butter to 8 cents and then to 12 cents, so that the farmers will have $22,000,000 and $33,000,000 more to put in their pockets. If the imposition of a duty adds the amount of that duty to the cost of the article, our farmers are reaping an extra profit of some $7,000,000 on cheese; of some $6,000,000 or $7,000,000 on eggs because of the 3 cent duty imposed on eggs. They will also reap a benefit of some millions of dollars because of the duty imposed on oats, wheat, barley and so forth. No hon. gentleman in this House believes for one moment, I am sure, that the addition of the duty on all these article adds so much to the price. It is just as consitent and reasonable to argue that the price of butter, eggs, meat and so on is increased to the full amount of the duty, as to claim that a binder, a mower or any other implement has its price added to by the amount of the duty on that article One proposition is just as sensible and reasonable as the other, but neither is reasonable.
When the McKenna duties came into operation in October 1915 they placed a 33^ per cent duty on motor cars, motorcycles, pianos and other musical instruments, clocks and watches, and cinema films. What was the result? The price of foreign cars in England dropped 21 per cent; the price of British cars dropped 30 per cent and the number of men employed in that industry increased from 50,000 to 300,000. Let me give you another illustration. Free trade England passed what is called the Dyestuffs Import Regulation Act in 1920, under Premier Lloyd George. In June 1921 the price of dyestuffs was 4s. 4d. per pound. In December of that year, under the protective tariff, the price was 3s. 6d. per pound; one year later it was 2s. 6d.; in 1923 it was Is. a -pound, or a reduction in three
2878	COMMONS
The Budget-Mr. Edwards (Frontenac)
years of 73 per cent, under protection. Then we have the Safeguarding of Industries Act, which was passed in England in i921. Hol-iowware goods came under that act, and the duty imposed led to a 33i per cent in- . crease in employment and a 15 per cent decrease in the price of the article.
In the United States in 1870 steel rails cost 8107 per ton. A duty of 828 per ton was imposed; in 1874 the price dropped to 849; in 1S76 it was 839. In 1883 the United States, considering the steel industry on its feet, reduced the duty to 817 a ton, and by 1S98 the price had fallen to $17.62 per ton. In 1883 the United States raised the duty on wire nails to 4 cents a pound, and in eight years the price fell to less than 2 cents a pound. In 1890 the McKinley tariff placed a duty of 2.2 cents per pound on tin-plate, which was then selling in the United States at 3J>
cents per pound, and by 1894 the price was down to 2.9 cents, and by 1898 it teas 2.2 cents.
May I add a further statement? A committee was appointed by the United States Senate to inquire into the effect on prices of the McKinley tariff. That committee reported that in the first twenty-eight months of the operation of the McKinley tariff the retail prices of 214 articles of common consumption had fallen by 64 per cent, while wages had risen by 75 per cent. As a protectionist, Mr. Speaker, I claim that the duty is not added to the price except when people are entirely dependent on foreign supply. Primarily it is labour that is most interested in protection. The man with money can seek other avenues of profit or wait for his dividends, but the labourer cannot wait for his dinner.
There are a few things which I want to call to the attention especially of hon. gentlemen from the west. I want to refer for a few minutes to six staple articles of food-bread, butter, milk, meats, potatoes and eggs. Of these articles Canada as a whole produced an exportable surplus amounting in 1924 to 8384.000.000. Each province, however, does not produce enough of all these articles for its own use, and to the extent to which any province falls short of producing these necessities of life, that province affords the best market in the world for the sister provinces which have a surplus of those articles.
Let me refer for a moment to wheat, because it seems to me-perhaps I am unjust in this;
I do not want to be-that hon. members from the west make everything revolve around wheat. I know it is a very important article, very important indeed to the west, and I can understand to a certain extent their attitude,

but let me point this out to them: Canada exports wheat to some thirty countries. Canada exports flour to some seventy-nine countries. Our exports of wheat and flour, that is, flour converted into bushels of wheat, amounted in 1924 to 309.340,000 bushels. Let us look at our principal markets for that. First of all, our principal market is the United Kingdom, which in 1924 bought from Canada 173,000,000 bushels of wheat and 4,234,000 barrels of flour. Who was our second best customer? The United States bought from us, in 1924, 21,228,000 bushels of wheat and 221,641 barrels of flour. Taking wheat and flour together, perhaps some would say that the United States is our second best- customer, but so far as flour is concerned it is fourteenth on the list of Canada's customers. Our second best customer for Canadian wheat (is not the United States, but the Dominion of Canada, which in the year I have mentioned, 1924, required for food and seed some 85,000,000 bushels of wheat. Prince Edward Island had a small surplus; Ontario had a surplus in that year of over 7,000,000 bushels; Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Quebec and British Columbia ran short of their .requirements for food to the extent of 16,669,000 bushels, and to that extent those four provinces provided a market, that is for food purposes alone, to say nothing of seed, for the wheat of the west to the amount, of 16,669.000 bushels. They sent to the west over $20,000,000 to pay for that wheat, an amount just equal to the total received from the United1 States for our wheat, an amount double that received from Germany for our flour, an amount greater than the total received by Canada for our flour from our next fifteen be6t customers.
In this connection I might also mention that our exports of flour in 1924 represented 403,307 tons of by-products, which are of immense value to our farmers in the west is well as to those in the east.
It has been said that the price of wheat is fixed in the United Kingdom. Taken as a general statement, I think that that is true, but I believe it is subject to some modification. The average price of wheat for all Canada in 1924 was $1.22; in Manitoba, $1.24; Saskatchewan, $1.21; Alberta, $1.20; Ontario, $1.27. Each of these provinces bad an exportable surplus, comparatively small in the case of Ontario, but very, very large in the west. Quebec, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick had a shortage. In Quebec the average price for the whole year was $1.66; New Brunswick, $1.78? Nova Scotia, $1.61; Prince Edward Island, $1.59. There was a shortage in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick of 4,216.000 bushels.

The Budget

Mr. Edwards (Frontenac)
Prince Edward Island had a small surplus of some 50,000 bushels, so we can understand the reason why the price kept up in Prince Edward Island, because her small surplus of 50,000 bushels was very easily taken up by Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. There was a shortage in British Columbia. Now for the wheat required in British Columbia for food purposes, that province sent over $2,000,000 to Alberta; I presume they sent it to Alberta because that would be the nearest. Now I want to say this, that the farmers of Alberta who supplied1 the $2,000,000 worth of what was needed in British Columbia should not only be willing but should be glad to use British Columbia apples, instead of apples from the state of Washington, and that, Sir, is something which you can apply all around.
In regard to butter and milk products, our exports in 1925 amounted to $58,000,000'. Our production in 1924 was 278,000,000 pounds. Our exports amounted to 13,648,000 pounds. Our home market took care of 95 per cent of our production. All of the provinces did not have what they required of butter. Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and British Columbia fell short of their requirements some 12,000,000 pounds.
In regard to cheese. Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia fell short of their requirements. I do think, Mr. Speaker, that there is some justification for people in the east charging those in the west with being selfish. I maintain that those provinces which fell short of their requirements of butter and cheese should buy from the provinces which have a surplus, and that those other provinces should return the compliment when they require something which the other provinces have to sell


Edward James Young: Did the production of the provinces fall short of their own requirements?


John Wesley Edwards: Do you
mean in the case of butter?


Edward James Young: Yes.


John Wesley Edwards: No. The
provinces of Saskatchewan, Manitoba ,and Alberta had a surplus of about 27,000,000 pounds of butter.


John Evans: Then where does the selfishness come in? '


John Wesley Edwards: There are other provinces besides those I have just mentioned. My general statement was that
in cases where the prairie provinces required products, for instance British Columbia apples, they should buy British Columbia apples as readily as that province buys their wheat. That is the statement I make and, it seems to me, it is plain and easily understood. In regard to cheese, the prairie provinces did fall short. Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta each fell short, the total shortage for the three provinces being about three and a half million pounds.


Edward James Young: Where did they get their supplies?


John Wesley Edwards: I cannot
say where they got their supplies. I presume they got them from the provinces which had a surplus. My argument is that is what they should do. Other provinces take your wheat, as in the case of the- provinces I mentioned a while ago. Seeing that the prairie provinces are able to market their surplus wheat in the province of Quebec and other provinces, then when those provinces fall short in their supply of cheese they ought to be willing to back up the industry which makes cheese in eastern Canada. But apparently that is not what they are willing to do. We in the east ask for and think we are entitled to a fair degree of protection in those articles which we handle especially.


Mr. BROWN:: To make his argument fair the hon. gentleman ought to show that we are getting protection on our wheat such as British Columbia is asking for its apples. My hon. friend's argument is not fair unless he pomts that out.


Edward James Young: I want to ask
the hon. gentleman


John Wesley Edwards: One at a
time if you please. I do not think the hon. gentleman's position is quite right. He says I must show that the west has protection on its wheat in order to make good my argument that we should be accorded protection on our products in this part of Canada. Is that what I understood my hon. friend to say?


John Livingstone Brown: The hon. member has made a comparison between the prairie provinces and British Columbia. He says we in the prairie provinces ought to buy British Columbia apples because they buy our wheat. The point is this: Is British Columbia buying our wheat because it is Canadian wheat or because it is the wheat most convenient for them to get?
2850	COMMONS
The Budget-Mr. Edwards (Frontenac)


John Wesley Edwards: I presume
that British Columbia is buying your wheat in Alberta because it is most convenient for them to do so.


John Livingstone Brown: Exactly.


John Wesley Edwards: I presume
that is true, but it does not alter the fact that they are buying your wheat. You say it is impossible to protect your wheat. Very well, if it is impossible to protect your wheat is that any reason why you should deny protection to an article which requires arid can be accorded protection? I do not think that argument holds good.


Edward James Young: We buy all our cheese from the other provinces. Why is it necessary for them to ask protection in our markets? They have it anyway.


John Wesley Edwards: I will come to that in a moment, I think the question is very easily answered. Speaking in a general way my statement would be this:	I contend
that a farmer in Canada, I do not care what he is producing, should, by a fair and reasonable adjustment of the tariff, be practically guaranteed that the article he produces will be used on Canadian tables instead of imported articles. You can apply that to anything you like, and if you can show me that you need protection for your wheat I will hold up both hands for it.


John Evans: How are you going to do
it?


John Wesley Edwards: I say that we do require protection in regard to such commodities as butter, eggs, meat, and many other articles this country produces.


John Evans: Will you say how wheat can
be protected?


John Wesley Edwards: No, I will
not say how it can be protected. I do not think that it needs protection.


John Vallance: Has it not been proven that the production costs more than we get for it?


John Wesley Edwards: You mean
the cost of production is more than you get for it?


John Vallance: Yes.


John Wesley Edwards: I have heard that stated. I presume you would know better whether the statement was correct than I. If that is a fact one would naturally suppose that in continuing to raise wheat you are only digging the hole all the deeper. 
Still you go on raising more wheat. But what has that to do with my argument? I was arguing the point as to whether you require protection for your wheat or not. We will let it go at that as far as wheat is concerned and I will finish my argument with respect to the things that do need protection.


Mr. McLEAN (Melfort):: Do you consider it fair to compel the producers in other parts of Canada to buy your articles at an artificial price when they have to sell their own products in the world's markets?


John Wesley Edwards: You do not sell all your wheat in the world's markets, not by any means.


Malcolm McLean: Absolutely.


John Wesley Edwards: Oh, no, you do not; and I have given you figures to-night which bear out my statement that the average price of SI.22 in 1924 did not apply in that year to all parts of Canada.


Malcolm McLean: Consider the
freight and the handling charges.


John Wesley Edwards: You would have the freight and the handling charges on whatever you sent down to the east where the price was more than SI.22. But I said in the beginning that so far as the price of wheat was concerned, speaking generally I was willing to admit that the price was fixed in the markets of the world. Generally speaking I believe that is correct, but in my judgment that is no reason why you should deny the protection which is needed in all fairness to the mixed farmers of Ontario and Quebec.


John Evans: Does the hon. gentleman
imply that we get more in Canada for our wheat than we do in the world's markets?
Mr. EDWARDS (Frontenac). I did not imply that, I stated it. I gave you the figures which I have taken from the government's own reports, and inasmuch as you are supporting this government very faithfully I do not suppose you will question the correctness of any of those reports.


John Livingstone Brown: The figures may be reliable but a very wrong inference may be drawn from them.


John Wesley Edwards: That is a
matter of judgment. I presume my hon. friend will admit that if there is a wrong inference
drawn it may be on his part.


Malcolm McLean: Does the hon. gentleman think we should be compelled by

The Budget-Mr. Edwards (Frontenac)
the tariff to buy at artificial prices when we have to sell what we produce in the world's markets at. the prices prevailing there?


John Wesley Edwards: My hon.
friends think that if I answer yes to that question I would be conceding that the placing of a tariff on an article gives that article an artificial price. That is what is in my hon. friends' minds. I do not concede that for a moment. It is not true, and history and experience have proved that it is not true Again and again it has been proven that the imposition of a tariff does not place an artificial price on an article which is protected. That will apply in the case of an article which cannot be produced in this country. Get that into your heads and keep it there. I direct that advice especially to the hon. member for Rosetown.


John Evans: Give us an instance.


John Wesley Edwards: I have given instances already.


Edward James Young: May I ask the hon. gentleman-


John Wesley Edwards: Sit down for a minute. I think I have been very good to the Saskatchewan kindergarten this evening.


Malcolm McLean: Will the hon.
gentleman permit me to ask one more question?


John Wesley Edwards: Well, yes, I will.


Malcolm McLean: Would the hon. member be kind enough to give us an instance of goods produced in Canada, instead of quoting exclusively in regard to goods produced in Britain and the United States, as to the price being raised by the tariff?


John Wesley Edwards: I do not know whether or not my hon. friend was in the House when I began to speak; I do not think he was. I did give an instance in the case of agricultural implements where the duty was raised to 35 per cent, and where, as a result of that, some nineteen establishments were set up in the province of Ontario, where the price was reduced because of the home competition. If my hon. friends are willing to admit that competition from outside will reduce the price, what is the matter with admitting that the same result will follow if we have competition at home? We had lots of competition introduced by the protective tariff which led to the establishment of industries.	[DOT]


John Evans: Will my hon. friend again give an instance?


John Wesley Edwards: The thirst for knowledge which is being exhibited by the hon. member for Rosetown and certain other members of the House is, I will admit, very commendable, but I recognize, Mr. Speaker, the utter impossibility of filling the aching void in their craniums between now and this time to-morrow. With all due respect, therefore, and with due regard and anxious solicitude for their welfare, recognizing their need for information of a reliable character, I will take a week-end off some time and try to pump some common sense into their heads, even into the head of the hon. member for Rosetown. Now, perhaps my hon. friend's question may be answered if he will listen to some further statements I have to make. I gave instances of the prices in Great Britain-


John Evans: We are speaking of Canada.


John Wesley Edwards: Why not Great Britain as well as Canada? My hon. friend would not question for a moment that a tariff which would produce the result it has produced in Great Britain would not have the same effect in Canada. There is no use trying to get anything in that hon. member's head. It is simply a waste of effort, and I have spent too much time on him already. I would not mind spending the time on him or on any of the kindergarten members over the way if there were any chance of getting results, but for some reason or other they seem to be past hope; they do not seem to be able to grasp anything to-night.


John Evans: The hon. member is up against it.


John Wesley Edwards: Perhaps the reason my hon. friend interrupted once or twice is that he wanted to get his name on Hansard. I have noticed several times that hon. members on the other side of the chamber make it a business to interrupt in order to get their names on Hansard, but when it comes to making a speech, that is another matter.
The attitude of the present government ir regard to the tariff is most unfair to the Dominion of Canada, as between Canada and the United States. I have in my hand a list which will show the duty imposed by the United States for the protection of their farmers and the protection given to Canadian farmers by the King government on the same articles. The list includes some fifteen articles, showing the Canadian duty and the American

2882	COMMONS
The Budget-Mr. Edwards (Frontenac)
duty. I presume, in view of the many interruptions, that no person will deny me the right to put this list on Hansard without reading it all. Surely I have the consent of hon. members to that.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Yes.


John Wesley Edwards: 
John Livingstone Brown: How will that affect them? The hon. member just said that the tariff did not raise the price.


John Wesley Edwards: Does the hon. gentleman think it hurts him?


John Livingstone Brown: The hon. member is advancing that as one of the offsets to the benefit of reciprocity.


John Wesley Edwards: No, I am not advancing it in that way at all. I am trying if I possibly can to get something resembling consistency into the minds of the hon. gentleman and those around him. That is a very hard thing to do, because one moment they talk as if they wanted free trade in agricultural implements, and in the next breath they say, "Give us the reciprocity pact of 1911." I am pointing out their own inconsistency, because in asking for the reciprocity pact of 1911 they are asking that the duties be raised higher than they are at present.


Edward James Young: 
John Wesley Edwards: The hon. member is wrong again. Under the reciprocity part it was not l7i per cent, it was 15 per

The Budget-Mr. Edwards (Frontenac)
cent, and the hon. gentleman did not know
it; so I have given another lesson 11 p.m. to one of the kindergarten class.
With the permission of the House I will put on Hansard a comparative table
showing respectively the rates of duty on sixteen farm implements under the Liberal and the Conservative governments and under the proposed reciprocity agreement:
Farm Implement	Liberal Government	Reciprocity Agreement	Conservative Government	United Grain Growers' Co.	Rate of Duty	Amount of Duty	Rate of Duty	Amount of Duty	Rate of Duty	Amount of Duty	Percentage of Profit	Profit in Cash1.	Binder	
2.	Mower	
3.	Horserake	
4.	Hay loader	
5.	Manure spreader	
6.	Seed drill	
7.	Farm wagon	
8.	Farm roller	
9.	Fanning mill	
10.	Windmill	
11.	Disc harrow	
12.	Spring tooth cultivator	
13.	Spike tooth harrow	
14.	Scuffler	
15.	Traction engine	p.c. m m 20 25 20 20 25 25 25 20 20 20 20 25 20 20	$ 31 92 10	99 7	00 22 62 25 00 15	46 16	00 17 31 5 37 11	42 8	00 12	80 4 40 3 00	p.c. 15 15 15 20 20 15 22* 20 20 20 15 15 15 20 15 20	$ 27 36 9 42 5	25 18 10 25 00 11 60 14 40 13 85 4 30 11 42 6	00 9 60 3 30 1 80	p.c. 12} 12* 15 20 15 15 20 20 20 17* 15 15 15 20 Free Free	$ 22 80 7 85 5	25 18 10 18 75 11 60 12 80 13 85 4 30 10 00 6	00 9 60 3 30 1 80	p.c. 21-06 21-06 21-06 21 06 21-06 21-06 21-06 21-06 21-06 21-06 21-06 21-06 21-06 21-06	$ 38 30 13 18 8 82 19 00 26 25 16 24 13	44 14	54 4 51 12 00 8 40 13 44 4 62 1 8916. Ditching machine	Average rate for 16 machines	21-25	17-64	14-5	21-06	Equivalent of duty in cash not including traction engine and ditching machine.	191 29	161 40	146 00	194 63
It will be noticed that in thirteen of the sixteen implements the Conservative tariff was 5 per cent lower than the Liberal tariff and 2i per cent lower on one, and that while the Liberals imposed a duty of 20 per cent on traction engines and ditching machines, these were free under the Conservative government. On those sixteen implements the average rate of duty under the Liberal government was 21.25 per cent. Under the proposed reciprocity agreement it was 17.6 per cent and under the Conservative administration in 1921 it was M.5 per cent. Converted into dollars, the duty on these sixteen articles amounted to $191.29 under the Liberal government; $161.40 under reciprocity, and $146 under the Conservative tariff of 1921.
I want to call attention to another matter -and this is for the particular delectation of hon. gentlemen from the west. During the time that we had a duty of 12J per cent on binders an institution in the west-


An hon. MEMBER:: Twelve and a half or
15 per cent?


John Wesley Edwards: The duty
on binders under the Liberal government was 174 per cent, under reciprocity 15 per cent, and under the Conservatives 124 per cent. Let me tell my hon. friend for his further information-I do not think it will crowd his grey matter too much to get a little more knowledge-that in the reduction of the duty 14011-183.}
from 35 to 6 per cent, that is to say, a reduction of 29 per cent, 9 per cent was taken off by the Liberals and 20 per cent by the Conservatives. But the point I want to refer to particularly, as being of special interest to hon. gentlemen from the west, is that while they and others in western Canada were complaining against the duty of 124 per cent which they said obliged the farmer to pay $22.80 more for his binder, the United Grain Growers Grain Company was taking 21 per cent of a profit on the same implement, or $38.30. That is a fact. They were also taking 21 per cent on mowers. That is to say, they pocketed $13.18 on a mower while at the same time they were complaining that the tariff obliged the farmer to pa}' $7.85 more than he should And so it was in regard to all these articles I have mentioned. According to the sworn evi-denc of Mr. Rice Jones-I do not think he was speaking ironically, either, while under oath, because he was getting $13,000 a year and he should have been able to tell the truth on that-the company made some considerable profits. As manager for the United Grain Growers' Grain Company he declared in his sworn evidence, given before a committee in this building, that the company took in profits in one year, on the farm implements they sold, the sum of $272,215, while they pocketed $68,383 in profits on lumber. On coal they took profits to the extent of $89,363.50 and on apples, $14,378.58. In the year 1915-16 their
2884	COMMONS
The Budget-Mr. Edwards (Frontenae)
grain profits amounted to $855,288, or 62.2 per cent. This will be found at page 821 of the evidence. In 1916-17 their profits were $844,401, or 44.92 per cent, and in 1917-18 they were $441,769, or 19.7 per cent-there was not so much grain that year. Their total profits in two years amounted therefore to $1,699,689, or an average of 53.56 per cent. And those profits, be it remembered, were made in war years. They were war profits and these were war profiteers. According to the sworn evidence of this gentleman they had in five years a shortage of 3,800 bushels of grain which had leaked out of the cars. They covered that shortage by what they called overages made possible by underweighing the farmers' grain, so that they took in those same five years 357,000 bushels of overages, or ten bushels from the farmer for every bushel of shortage.


John Evans: Will the hon. gentleman allow me a question?


Mr. EDWARDS (Frontenae):: I will not;
I must ask the hon. member to sit down. He cannot work that sort of game. They sold the overages for $418,000.


Malcolm McLean: I rise to a point of order. The hon. member said that the United Grain Growers underweighted the grain. He must know that neither the United Grain Growers nor any other company can weigh grain at the terminals.


Alexander McKay Edwards: I suppose
we have to put up with these children. What the hon. member says does not constitute a point of order, and if my hon. friend from Melfort had any intelligence-


Malcolm McLean: I rise to a point of order. No hon. member has any right to cast reflections in any way on other hon. gentlemen.


Alexander McKay Edwards: Does the hon. gentleman-


Malcolm McLean: I would ask,
Mr. Speaker, that the hon. member be directed to withdraw the remark.


Alexander McKay Edwards: Well, the kindergarten is becoming really amusing. I suppose the hon. gentleman wants to get something off his chest and pretend it is another point of order. However, to proceed. In the five years during which they said they had a shortage of 3,800 bushels they had overages to the extent of 357,000 bushels, and as the grain was weighed in their

own elevators the only way in which the overages could occur was by giving the farmers less than their grain really weighed
Mr. BROWN' That shows what the hon. member knows about it.


Alexander McKay Edwards: I was not
getting any dividends from it; perhaps you were. They sold the overages for $418000


Malcolm McLean: I appeal to
you on a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I would ask the old man across the floor to be more respectful.


Alexander McKay Edwards: Now, Mr. Speaker, I have endeavoured to be as good humoured in this matter as possible, but my patience has about reached its limit. I do not propose to submit to any further interruptions of this sort from hon. gentlemen opposite. I have correctly estimated the intelligence of the hon. member for Melfort and have made allowance for it, but there is a limit beyond which even he may not be permitted to go, and I ask you, Mr. Speaker, to see that my right is respected and to prevent the hon. gentleman from acting as he has been doing.
Let me call the attention of the House to another point. They invested $100,000 in a subsidiary concern in New York known as the New York Export Company, and according to the sworn evidence of their manager their profits from that company in one year amounted to $530,000, or 530 per cent-this on the part ot heaven-sent politicians, the angels of political purity, who were howling their heads off about a duty of 12J per cent on binders. They objected to such a duty but they could take 530 per cent out of the farmers. Every vestige of profit this company made they secured from the grain they bought from the farmers, and from the implements and supplies they sold to them. Indeed, they made such exorbitant profits, as revealed in their own evidence given before a committee of this House, as would cause them to damn any company in the Dominion, outside their own concern, which had received even one-quarter of what they got. I say in the presence of these gentlemen, Mr. Speaker, that the most conscienceless, coldblooded, soulless profiteering monopoly that ever existed in the Dominion was the United Grain Growers' Grain Company, whose leaders framed the policy of the Progressive party that is now sitting in this House. I might refer to the profits they made on screenings. During those years, including the war, screenings averaged $8.84 a ton. When Mr. Crerar was Minister of Agriculture he bought some, as he said, for the benefit of

The Budget-Mr. Edwards (Frontenac)
the farmers down east at $35 a ton. The government lost 896,446.46. He was Minister of Agriculture at that time as well as president of this big company in the west. That was one occasion when the president of the company, m the person of Mr. Crerar, put one over on the Minister of Agriculture, also in the person of Mr. Crerar. He bought 1.616 tons from the Maharg Company at $46,560.
Now, Sir, it has been suggested that tariffs do not make any difference in trade. The effect of the Fordney-McCumber tariff may be seen in the following figures covering a period of three months just before that tariff came into operation and the same three months of the year following.
Effect of Fordney Tariff
Some Exports of Canada for three months before and thre months after Fordney Tariff
-	June, July and Aug. before Fordney Tariff	June, July and Aug. after Fordney Tariff
	3,176,158 lbs. (2^c.) 120.818 " 10,434,000 " 1,298,978 " (F.) 58.867 head (F.) 249.514 bush. (F) 74,649 bbls. (F.)	200.926 lbs. (8c.) 13,945 " 5,650.000 " 18,652 " (45c.) 18.811 head (40%) 66,749 bush. (50c) 11,627 bbls.($2.04
		
Meats			
		
		
		
		
In last 10 years United States has sold to Canada $2,000,000,000 more than Canada has sold to the United States.
This shows the effect which the Fordney-McCumber tariff had upon our export trade to the United States.
I want to say that that tariff was placed on the statute books of the United States at the demand of the farmers who live in the northern tier of states, where they have found it impossible to compete with the cheap farm production of the southern states. Half of the states in the Union, as their statistics show, report a reduction in the value of farms and in improved farm acreage. Where are they? They are in the northern part where their climate is similar to ours. The other half having a mild climate show an increase of farm acreage and farm values. The farmers of these northern states went to congress and said:	"We realize that we cannot
get protection against our neighbouring states, but we insist that we be protected against the importations from Canada and other countries; you can protect us to that extent." It was to meet that demand that the Fordney-McCumber tariff was passed. Those farmers just recently demanded an addition to the duty on butter, and at their request it was raised from eight to twelve cents a pound. In the face of these facts we are told that our farmers do not need any protection; we are
told that we are not affected by severe climatic conditions; when the dairymen of New Zealand and Australia are producing butter at the lowest cost of production, and our dairymen are producing it at the highest cost of production, we are told that we must not have protection. Hon. gentlemen like my friend from Rosetown (Mr. Evans) and some of those occupying the kindergarten from Saskatchewan repeat that they are not particularly affected, that the only thing they are interested in is wheat. Apparently they. do not care anything for the people of Ontario and Quebec-the two provinces which to-day are paying seventy cents of every dollar collected to run this country-the people of those provinces in the estimation of some hon. gentlemen in this House are deserving of no consideration at all. I realize quite well of course that the government and its assistants are actuated by a spirit of revenge. They do not like the result of the elections in October last; they will like even less the results when the next elections come around not only there but in other parts of the country.


An hon. MEMBER:: Order.


John Wesley Edwards: Is my hon. friend asking something?


An hon. MEMBER:: No, he is just groaning.


John Wesley Edwards: The only
other matter I wish to refer to is immigration In the speech from the Throne it is said:
We have formulated and put into operation a comprehensive immigration plan.
What comprehensive plan have they put into operation? What comprehensive plan have they even formulated? Plans they have spoken of every year, one, two, three, but I should like any person to tell me of one single plan in regard to immigration which this government has put into successful operation Even their plan to bring out 3,000 families from Great Britain has fallen down. I am informed that the government notified the railways not to bring out any more families under that scheme. Why? Well, they say they cannot provide them with farms. -1 have some information in regard to that, Mr. Speaker. I have in this hand a list of over 700 farms in Ontario, prepared by the provincial government. Those farms are available. In this other hand I have a list of 656 farms in the little province of Prince Edward Island. Those also are available if the government choose to place settlers upon them. I have a further list of '55 farms in that province I have another list of a similar number of
2886	COMMONS
The Budget-Mr. Edwards (Frontenac)
farms in New Brunswick, farms running from as low as $150 up to $800 and upwards. Here is a 50 acre farm, 25 acres cleared, price $1,000. Here is a 232 acre farm, 150 acres cleared, house barn and good water, price $4,000. Here is a 50 acre farm, 25 acres cleared, good buildings, price $400. Here is another 50 acre farm, also 25 acres cleared, with good buildings, price only $700. Those farms are in Prince Edward Island. The New Brunswick list contains farms, with buildings and running water, priced from as low as $800. There are numberless opportunities to place the proper kind of settlers in the Dominion; they need not all be sent to the west. The places which need to be filled up are those older provinces of Ontario and especially the Maritimes. But the trouble with this government is that in immigration matters they are a ten cent government dealing with a hundred dollar matter; those are about the correct dimensions. The immigration question is the big question of to-day, and therefore it never can be successfully handled by the aggregation across the way. They have never handled anything of any size; they cannot do so, because they have not a capacity for anything big, and never will have. Anything done in immigration matters since this government came into power has been done by the Canadian Pacific Railway, the Canadian National Railways, the different provinces and certain organizations such as the Salvation Army. Meanwhile our farmers are asking for farm help; no assistance is coming from this government because, as I said before, they are absolutely inadequate, inefficient and do not know how to deal with big questions.
It has been repeatedly stated that the Conservative party stands for a high protective wall, a brick for a brick. That is not true, Mr. Speaker, and never was true. I have shown that in the eighteen years from 1878 to 1896 we had a protective policy; that in the fifteen years of the Laurier government that protective policy was maintained; that the tariff on dutiable goods under the Laurier government was 5 per cent higher than the tariff on dutiable goods when the Conservative party went out of power in 1921. That apparently will not stop these hon. gentlemen from repeating what has already been said so often. Up until 1923, when the Right Hon. W. S. Fielding brought down his last budget, all the parties in Canada had fairly consistently followed the traditional National Policy laid down by the Conservative party in 1878. That policy was departed from when the King government lost the services of the only two [Mr. J. W. Edwards.!
of its members who had any standing in the country, Right Hon. W. S. Fielding and Sir Lomer Gouin. It then ceased to be a government, and there has been nothing since which could be dignified with the name of government. It has been getting worse and worse all the time. When we had those two big men in the government they could hold such wreckers as the hon. member for Lisgar (Mr. Brown) in check, as well as those from Saskatchewan occupying the kindergarten seats. When these big men went out and the mantle fell on the pigmy shoulders of the present Minister of Finance and his colleagues, there was no one left to stem the tide. Since 1923 this has been a government of compromise, pussyfooting, log-rolling and bartering foi power; nothing else. They have thrown theii promises and pledges to the winds; they have violated the pledge given during the last election campaign, which was reiterated time and again. Where in this Dominion, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, will you find a man with money to invest who will show any confidence in this government? Who can have any confidence in a government which has violated its pledges, as this government has done? They have not only injured the automobile industry by their reductions regardless of their promises, but they have done worse; they have absolutely deprived the people of this country of that which is absolutely necessary, if you are to have industrial development-confidence in the government which controls affairs. They have destroyed that confidence, and by that action have struck a severe blow at the development of this Dominion.
I regret, Mr. Speaker, having taken so much time.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Hear, hear.


John Wesley Edwards: My hon.
friends should not say "hear, hear", because if they were at all generous they must have recognized the fact that a large part of my time was taken up in what I believe was a fruitless effort in trying to force some common sense into heads which, so far as we have been able to judge, have shown no sign of possessing that desirable quality. I have not much hope that what I have said, and the instructions I have given, will have any effect, because you have to plant seed in fertile ground if it is to produce anything, and there is no fertility over yonder; there are no brains to furnish the necessary soil to produce results. I can only leave the matter with them, hoping against hope that Providence, which has done so much for the Liberal

The Budget-Mr. Perras
party, will still exercise its beneficent influence and furnish some of the gentlemen of the kindergarten school with what they so much need, a little common sense and ordinary brain power.


Mr. F. W. PERRAS (Wright):: Mr. Speaker, it is with some hesitation that I rise to address this honourable House. If I do so it is because of a sense of duty which I feel towards this country, and in an especial manner to the county of Wright, which I have the honour to represent in the federal parliament.
So many able speakers have preceded me, representing the three-indeed I may say the four-parties of Canada in this House, that I felt my views might be construed by many as "a voice in the wilderness". I have not the gift of oratory; I am a simple business man, somewhat lacking in flights of eloquence, but content to possess at least the virtue of sincerity.
This is my maiden speech. Mr. Speaker, and I am sure some of the hoary statesmen who are listening to this my first utterance on the floor of this House, remembering their first efforts, will listen to my few remarks with sympathy and attention.
The budget as introduced by my hon. friend the Minister of Finance (Mr. Robb) will not only receive my wholehearted support but commands as well my admiration for its eminently fair and just policy towards the different economic industries of our country. I do not claim it is perfect, but 1 do maintain that it is the best policy under existing circumstances in Canada. When we consider the terrible burdens, financial and otherwise, we have had to shoulder since the world war, I consider it a marvellous tribute indeed to the present government, that in spite of reduced taxation, they have succeeded in reducing the national debt by so many millions of dollars. Penny postage, whioh originated under a Liberal government, has been re-established by a Liberal government. The income tax has been materially reduced, and taxation in other matters has also been reduced. The consequence is that the farmer, the labourer and the man of modest means sees daylight and comparative prosperity ahead, while a few, and only a very few, moneyed interests 'are finding fault with a government that is honestly and intelligently doing its utmost to render justice and fair play to all, without favouritism to any particular class or privileged class. There are those who are criticizing the tax on the automobile industry, and declaring that it means the ruin of this important industry. A close analysis of the true facts of the case will not bear out their argument. The automobile industry is on a solid and thriving
basis. Let us only take last year's turnover and sales as an example. I quote from the Montreal Star of April 22, 1926:
The automobile industry attains record for 1925 output. One car to every 13 persons in Canada. Figures show record production was attained in the automobile industry in Canada in 1925, according to a statement just issued by the Dominion Bureau of Statistics at Ottawa. In that year, the eleven automobile factories in Canada produced 124,458 passenger cars, 22,144 trucks and 15,368 chassis, a total of 161,970 cars which was an increase of 22 per cent over 1924, and 10 per cent above the figures for 1923-the previous best year, when 147,202 cars and trucks were produced.
Does any intelligent member of this House imagine for one moment that the reduction in the tariff on motor cars is going to kill this industry? Far from it. As we say in French, my mother tongue, "c'est pour rire".
As regards the smuggling which it is said was going on, it is comforting and consoling to learn that there was an increase in the net sum collected in customs duties. There will always be a certain amount of smuggling in this country, as in all others, but our government is to be congratulated for the zeal and courage it is displaying in the prosecution of this investigation.
It has often been said of the Liberal party that it panders only to the agricultural interests, that it is at the beck and call of the farmer, especially those of the western provinces under the leadership of the hon. member for Brandon (Mr. Forke). If it were true-and I deny it-I would be glad to see our government favouring the agricultural classes of this country. In Canada they are to-day, and will be for many years to come, the predominant industry and the backbone, marrow and sinew of Canada. I have the honour of representing an essentially agricultural county, the county of Wright, in the province of Quebec. Our agriculturists are men and women of worth; they are the sturdy, healthy and progressive pioneers of our country-I use the term "progressive" advisedly. I will continue to support the present government in all its just measures for the welfare and advancement of the great Canadian west; and let no man forget that t)he prairie provinces were founded on 'toil, sacrifice and perseverance; and justice, if not humanity, calls for fair play to these worthy pioneers. As long, Mr. Speaker, as this government continues to protect the agricultural interests of this country, it will receive my wholehearted support. I must congratulate the hon. Minister of the Interior (Mr. Stewart) in his effort to promote forestry conservation.
Lobster Fishing Season

It is a regrettable fact that $15,000,000 has been lost to us annually through criminal negligence and otherwise. I am glad to see that the right hon. the Prime Minister (Mr. King) has interested himself in this subject. Outside of the prairie provinces, they have no direct legislation, but they have the force of advice, co-operation and co-ordination.
I am also in accord with the present administration in its old age pension policy. I would go even further and support a measure that would reduce the age at which the pension should begin from 70 to 65.
Before I conclude, Mr. Speaker, let me ask you and this honourable House: Is there to-day a more prosperous nation than Canada? Let us not be pessimistic but optimistic as regards the future of our country and Canada's wonderful natural resources. What Canada requires to-day is the spirit of optimism, not pessimism.
I am sorry that I have taken so much of your time, Mr. Speaker, and I thank the House for its generous attention.
On motion of Mr. Smith the debate was adjourned.



ADJOURNMENT-BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

[Stage Direction]
Mr. Lapointe moved the adjournment of the House.
Arthur Meighen: I hope the leader of the House will not be offended if I ask for confirmation or denial of the late reports that certain changes in the budget are to be announced shortly.


Ernest Lapointe: My right hon. friend has received information that I have not got. I do not know of any changes; I do not think there will be any.
Motion agreed to and the House adjourned at 11.40 p.m.
Wednesday, April 28, 1926.