1926-02-25

[Stage Direction]
Mr. PAUL MERCIER (St. Henri) presented the second report of the special committee appointed to investigate the administration of the Department of Customs and Excise as follows:
The special committee appointed to investigate the administration of the Department of Customs and Excise beg leave to present the following as their second report:
Your committee request that they be granted leave to sit while the House is in session.
All of which is respectfully submitted.
P. Mercier,
Chairman.
He said: I beg to move that the report be concurred in.
Motion agreed to.

[Stage Direction]
On thie Orders of the Day:
Mir. J. S. WOODSWORTH (Winnipeg North Centre):: May I call the attention of
the government to a despatch from Lunenburg, N.S., dated February 23:
According to a statement made here to-night, by B B. Cann, of Yarmouth, owner of the rum-running schooner Eastwood, alleged to have been shelled aboul a week ago, while anchored twenty miles off Long Island by the United States cutter Seneca, he is preparinf to register formal protest at Ottawa with the Canadiaj government.
Mr. Cann said: "I would not consider myself ; patriotic citizen unless I registered a protest again5 this sort of treatment. I will surely make a form*
Unemployment Relief

protest to the government at Ottawa. I intend to fight this case to the very limit, not because of the damage done to my vessel, nor the expense to myself, but because I, as a Canadian, will not stand idle and allow any foreign country to treat the Union Jack as a joke when it is hoisted on the mast of a British merchantman.
Is it the policy of the government to permit the use of the British flag to shield rumrunners who are carrying on a business that may be regarded as a series of unfriendly acts towards a neighbouring nation?


Hon. J. A. ROBB:: No.


Right Hon. ARTHUR MEIGHEN (Leader of the Opposition):: Perhaps the Minister of National Defence will tell us where our trawlers are now?


Mr. MACDONALD (Antigonish-Guysbo-rough):: I do not know to what class of vessels my right hon. friend refers. There aTe no trawlers in the service of the Canadian government. There are fishing vessels-


Arthur Meighen: Fishing vessels?
Mr. MACDONALD (Antigonish^Guysbor-ough)): -owned by the parties engaged in fishing.


Arthur Meighen: Does the Canadian navy consist of fishing vessels?


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: No, and the Canadian navy does not consist of trawlers either.



SOLDIER SETTLERS' LAND

[Stage Direction]
On the Orders of the Day:
Hon, CHARLES STEWART (Minister of the Interior): With reference to a question asked by the hon. member for Vancouver-Burrard (Mr. Clark) yesterday, I wish to say that it is expected that approximately fifty or sixty British families will be settled in the Fraser valley this year, on lands held by the Soldier Settlement Board. Some of the lands were never occupied by soldier settlers. In other oases, the soldier settlers occupied the land for a very short time. Only a few locations have been lately abandoned. Very few of the farms in question were foreclosed because the soldier settlers were not able to make their payments. That is the answer to my hon. friend's question.
Mir. CLARK:: May I remind the minister that the vital point of the question was, whether the lands are being turned over to the immigrants at values lower than those originally placed on them for soldier settlement?
(Mr. Woodsworth.]


Mr. STEWART (Edmonton):: I asked that question, and in some cases they are turned over at a lower value. In the majority of cases, however, they are turned over at the value at which the soldier settler was placed upon the land.



UNEMPLOYMENT RELIEF

[Stage Direction]
On the Orders of the Day:
Hon. R. B. BENNETT (West Calgary):: I desire to ask the Minister of the Interior a question respecting unemployment. I have mentioned the matter to him, and I merely ask the question in order to clear up what is apparently a misapprehension. I have received the following telegram from Blairmore, Al'berta:
At a largely attended meeting of the above local it was unanimously decided to bring the matter of prevalent distress in this district to the attention of both provincial and federal authorities. Owing to the mines not working very much for the last few years and not more than two days per week since last August with a spare working crew to share in on that many of the people are in dire circumstances and this meeting requests both federal and provincial authorities to take a hand in this critical state of affairs and come to their assistance by providing work if possible and financial aid where work is not possible.
John A. McDonald,
President.
William Oakes,
Financial Secretary.
D. A. Howe,
Recording Secretary.
Apparently, Mr. Speaker, there is a misapprehension as to the assistance to be extended and the amount to be contributed by the provincial and federal authorities, and if the minister would make a statement I think it would do much to clear up any doubt that may exist on the matter.


Charles A. Stewart: I would prefer that the Minister of Public Works should make any statement on this matter as he is Acting Minister of Labour. I may say, however, that the allocation of the amount payable in such cases is one-third of the excess of the cost of the relief work having to be done in the particular season in which such work may be necessary. With reference to the relief itself, it is then a clear third. The procedure is this:	A
request as well as a statement of cost will be furnished by the provincial government and the statement will be checked by officers of the federal government.


Richard Bedford Bennett: The federal government
is not to take the initiative in any of the work?


Charles A. Stewart: No, the
provincial government will take the initiative.

Australian Treaty



SOLDIER SETTLEMENT

[Stage Direction]
REVALUATION OF LANDS On the Orders of the Day:
Mr. H. J. BARBER (Fraser Valley):: Will the Minister of the Interior inform me if it is the intention of the government at an early date to undertake a revaluation of soldier settlement lands? I press this question at this time because I have had communications from a number of returned men in my riding Who are thinking seriously of abandoning their farms this spring for the reasons that their lands were purchased at boom prices, one hundred to two hundred per cent above present day prices, and they feel they cannot afford to hold them; and for the further reason that a number of immigrant farms are being handed over to immigrants at greatly reduced prices.


Charles A. Stewart: I am informed by the Soldier
Settlement Board that a survey was made in one or two cases this year. The report is not available at present but will be in a day or two. When it is received the department will recommend to the government measures to be taken with respect to revaluation, and whether or not it should be universal or only in part. I will make a statement to the House at the earliest possible date.



TRANSPORTATION OF COAL

[Stage Direction]
SEVEN DOLLAR RATE ON ALBERTA COAL On the Orders of the Day:
Richard Bedford Bennett: I apologize to the House for asking a second question. It has been announced that the government propose to bear one-third of the cost, beyond $7 a ton, of transporting coal from certain points in Alberta to Ontario. Borne of the collieries are located on the Canadian Pacific railway at points not reached by the Canadian National railways. I have been asked if the aid given by the government would be equally available for collieries not located on the Canadian National but on the other road.


Charles A. Stewart: Yes, there will be no discrimination so long as the coal comes through to central Canada.
FORT ALEXANDER INDIAN RESERVE On the Orders of the Day:


Mr. THOMAS HAY (Springfield):: I Should like the Minister of the Interior to inform the House if a surrender to the government has been made of that portion of the Indian reserve lying south of Winnipeg river and
what the purpose of the government is with respect to the land so surrendered.


Charles A. Stewart: Is my hon. friend referring to the Alexander reserve?


Thomas Hay: Yes, the Fort Alexander reserve.


Charles A. Stewart: Yes, there was an application by a pulp and paper company to purchase a certain portion of the reserve. I do not know whether the band has voted upon it or not. I will ascertain and let my hon. friend know.



AUSTRALIAN TREATY


[Stage Direction]
On the Orders of the Day:
Mr. DONALD SUTHERLAND (South Oxford) :: Will the Minister of Finance tell me whether any reply has been received from the government of Australia with regard to the reported payment of a bonus of six cents a pound on butter by the stabilization committee in Australia?


James Alexander Robb: I was just going to send a memorandum to my hon. friend, but since he has asked the question, I will tell him that there is no reply from the government of Australia. Indeed, there is no government subsidy, but I have a telegram from the Canadian Trade Commissioner at Melbourne who advises us that the scheme is purely voluntary, not government controlled. The producers of all states excepting Western Australia and Tasmania have become parties to this arrangement but they are not large producers. The scheme also raises the price to local consumers by three pence per pound above the export London parity; that is they charge their own people three pence per pound more than they charge for export, and the memorandum from the department says that because it is under the Pattersen scheme and a voluntary arrangement they come under our dumping clause and the Customs are so ruling. The Australian agreement provides that the rates thereunder shall be subject to the provisions of the Canadian customs tariff. With reference to the importation of butter into Canada from Australia, if the import price is less than the home consumption value it is liable to the special or dumping duty. The dumping Clause, which is section 6 of the customs tariff, provides in effect that in the case of articles exported to Canada, of a class or kind made or produced in Canada, if the export or actual
The Address-Mr. McGibbon

selling price to an importer in Canada is less than the fair market value in the country whence exported to Canada, there shall, in addition to the duties otherwise established, be levied on such article a special or dumping duty equal to the difference between the export price and the price for home consumption. The special or dumping duty shall not exceed fifteen per cent ad valorem. As the scheme in Australia raises the price to local consumers by three pence a pound above the export London parity, butter from Australia imported into Canada will be subject to the provisions of the dumping clause. The official in my department holds that there will be a dumping duty of approximately fifteen per cent on any butter that enjoys that privilege.


Donald Sutherland: I might point out that the article which I read the other day did not state that the bounty was paid by the Australian government, but the question which I asked a moment ago was whether a bonus of six cents a pound was to be paid on butter exported from Australia under this scheme of the Australian stabilization committee.


James Alexander Robb: There is a voluntary arrangement and under that arrangement they have apparently placed the matter under our dumping clause.


Donald Sutherland: Six cents a pound?


James Alexander Robb: Something like that.


Arthur Meighen: Does the minister state
that the dumping clause can apply on a percentage basis to an article imported under a duty of so much a pound?


James Alexander Robb: Yes.


Arthur Meighen: I do not see how it can.


James Alexander Robb: That is the interpretation of
the commissioner.



GOVERNOR GENERAL'S SPEECH


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed from Wednesday, February 24, consideration of the 'motion of Mr. J. C. Elliott for an Address to His Excellency the Governor General in reply to his Speech at the opening of the session, and the proposed motion of Mr. Bird:	That this
question be now put.
Mr. PETER McGIBBON (Muskoka-Ontario):: When the House adjourned yesterday I had drawn attention to the amendment of the hon. member for Nelson (Mr. Bird). I pointed out that his amendment

was an infringement on the liberty of the members of this House. I had pointed out also that it either had been moved with the consent of the government or without it; that if it had been with the consent of the government they were hiding behind a cowardly attack which they were unable or had not the courage to make themselves. I had referred to the fact that the government had either been willing or unwilling that the hon. member for Nelson should move this amendment and that if unwilling themselves to move the amendment they were foregoing their prerogative in regard to directing the legislation of this House. In that case I had pointed out that if they no longer were able to command and direct legislation in this chamber, it was their duty to resign.
I wish to point out at this stage something that is very important to the present argument, and that is that we have in power a government who appealed to the people of Canada in October last and who were utterly defeated; that the Prime Minister and eight cabinet ministers were sent to the guillotine, and that in no less than four provinces in this Dominion there is no representation in the goverment. Moreover, they are being kept in power to-day by a party that were not and could not be elected as supporters of this government, and consequently I ask them: By what right do they still linger upon the treasury benches? I had also drawn the attention of the House to the fact that the difficulties confronting this country to-day could be solved by having more work, a greater number of men profitably employed at work in order that they should help to bear the burden of taxation and provide freight for our railways, et cetera, and also greater markets for the products of our farms. Along with this I suggested the necessity of a reduction in taxation and I analysed the consolidated revenue of Canada on a per capita basis showing how much each province was paying. This brings me to the question of the railways which, to my mind, is, with the exception of the war, the greatest problem that ever confronted Canada. Let me repeat what I said yesterday afternoon that the railway question for the east and for the west is one that must receive the consideration of this House. I am one who believes that money will have to be taken out of (he public treasury to help to reduce freight rates from the two extremities of this country, but I wish to register my emphatic protest against the method that has been employed in the past of getting reductions in freight rates. I must congratulate members

The Address-Mr. McGibbon
from the Maritime provinces on the very impartial, judicial and forceful way in which they have presented their case to this country. They have made out an especially good case and I was very much surprised at the reply which the hon. member for Lisgar (Mr. Brown) made to them. After they had pointed out that they had borne their share in building the Canadian Pacific which did not go into some of the provinces, in building the Transcontinental and the Grand Trunk Pacific which gave them very little benefit and in constructing the canals of this country from which they also derived very little benefit, when the hon. member for Lisgar got up to reply, he went out into the garbage heap and produced the old argument that he was willing to give them more freedom of trade. They asked for bread and he was not prepared even to give them a placebo.
That brings into review the whole transportation question. We have been developing in this country some three methods of transportation. We have at the present time a western outlet for the prairies. This outlet, as every hon. member knows, has been increasing in value during the last few years and, in my opinion, when the great yellow, brown and black races that are eating less rice and more wheat than ever before, get thoroughly converted to a change of diet, the western route is going to be one of the great exits for our wheat. We have also been developing a system of inland waterways. We have built the Sault canal; we have spent millions upon the Welland canal and, to my mind, all these things are a mistake if we do not carry them to their logical conclusion and make it possible for ocean-going vessels to reach the head of the lakes. The deep waterway system is one which should be continued and pressed to an immediate conclusion. That is all the more important when we consider the large volume of our grain that is going via Buffalo to the Atlantic coast, and it is also important because the power that can ibe developed along that route wili be sufficient to pay interest on the investment.
We have before this parliament a fourth route and .that is the Hudson Bay route which has been put into the Speech from the Throne, as I said yesterday, as a means of seducing and getting support from the western Progressives. While I believe all hon. members on this side will be prepared to look at that problem on its merits, I do not think .they will find very much merit in it when they are finished with it. If I might make a suggestion to the government, it would be that they make a present of this
road, on which we have spent some $14,000,000 in construction and some $6,000,000 in terminals, to the Manitoba and Saskatchewan governments, and throw in three or four million dollars to complete it. I believe this country would be infinitely better off in the end if that suggestion were carried out.
Having prefaced my remarks on the railway question to that extent, I want for the benefit of my good Progressive friends from the west to review the rate question as it pertains to them and to the people of Ontario. On looking up the rate question I find that the rate per ton per mile in western Canada is eighty-seven cents while in eastern Canada it is $1.17. I also find in reviewing returns on grain that were made to this House a year ago, .that the operating costs for 1923 were 126.14 per cent and for 1924, 126.96 per cent, producing an operating loss in the first case of $6,088,499 and in the second, of $5,812,016. Had that same quantity of grain been carried the same distance on United States lines, our western Progressive friends would have had to pay $34,000,000 more in freight than they did. In other words, the farmers of western Canada have an advantage over the farmers of the United States equivalent to $34,000,000 in carrying that quantity of grain that distance. In looking over other returns that were made to this House last year I find that there was a deficit on our railways in the Atlantic region of, roughly speaking, $3,500,000. In the central region there was a net revenue of $16,400,000 while on the United States lines the net revenue was $5,700,000. In the western region there was a deficit of $1,124,000. What are we to deduce from these figures? Simply this, that the central region is carrying the great burden of taxation in connection with the railways so far as freight is concerned, just as I pointed out yesterday that they were carrying also the great burden of taxation in every other direction. I am not objecting to reduced freight rates either in the east or in the west; I want to be perfectly fair and to be well understood in that regard. I said yesterday that the central provinces were quite prepared to share that burden, and I say so again to-day. But I want to register my protest against a system that penalizes *the middle for the 'benefit of the two extremes. I say that this money should be taken boldly out of the treasury for the national good and every citizen in Canada should contribute accordingly to that end.
I was astounded when the hon. member for South Winnipeg (Mr. Rogers) rose in his place early in the session and charged the government with directly interfering with the
The Address-Mr. McGibbon

railway commission; and I was equally astounded to learn that they had interfered by legislation with railway rates. That is not their prerogative; there should be a freight rate in this country that would allow not only the east and the west but central Canada as well to do business. I submit therefore that the proper method is to take boldly out of the treasury the money that is necessary to recoup the railways for any loss they might suffer in the matter of reduced freight rates. How can we expect the national railways to pay when members in this House advise, and the government act upon that advice, that they be made to carry goods below cost? Day after day we have seen hon. gentlemen getting up in their places and asking the government questions in regard to freight rates, and day after day we have heard the Minister of the Interior (Mr. Stewart) agreeing to use his good offices with the Canadian National Railways in the matter. Do we ever hear similar suggestions being made with reference to the Canadian Pacific Railway? Yet the government would have us believe that the Canadian National Railways are out of politics.
For the information of our good Progressive friends let me analyze the railway debt. We have invested in the Canadian National Railways over $2,000,000,000 according to Mr. Bell's report of March 25. On the basis of population Ontario's share of that would be $885,000,000, but if we take as a basis the rates of taxation I have already given its contribution would be two and a half times that sum. We built out of the revenues of the country the National Transcontinental Railway at a cost of $170,000,000 and Ontario's share of that, according to population, was $15,000,000; ' but actually it amounted to $27,000,000. I could go on if necessary and show what proportion of the cost of that railway was paid for by the western provinces, but possibly I have pursued the argument far enough. We have also invested in the canals of Canada $362,000,000 of which Ontario's proportion would be $120,000,000.
On consulting the records of parliament I find that this country has loaned to our western friends through the Seed Grain Relief Act something like $16,300,000 of which the sum of $4,300,000 remains unpaid. I find further that we spent on the Royal Canadian Mounted Police down to 1920 the vast sum of $3o,000,000. I say therefore that when you balance up the accounts between east and west and take the contributions of central Canada into consideration you will find that the provinces of Ontario and Quebec have borne the heaviest part of the burden.

Now we have heard hon. gentlemen getting up day in and day out and telling us how conditions have been improving in Canada. At the same time gentlemen from the extreme east as well as from Montreal, Toronto, Hamilton, Winnipeg, Edmonton and the far west have been pleading in this House to have proper freight rates put into force in order to facilitate the movement of coal so that the labourers of these various places may be kept from starvation. So far as the unemployment in these places is concerned, I believe that these gentlemen are right. In the month of January of this year, according to the statistics of this government's own Department of Labour, there were 50,000 people more out of work than there were in the month of December, and this unemployment is widely distributed; it begins at the Atlantic and goes clean across the continent. Every city in every province is faced with more unemployment now than it had to cope with during the month of December. I would direct the attention of the Labour members of this House to a letter written by Mr. Thomas Moore, which contains some interesting statements. It is not necessary for me to explain who or what this gentleman is; he is well known to every member of the House. He is here discussing the situation as it exists here to-day in Canada and the causes thereof, and in relation to unemployment he draws the distinction between a revenue tariff and a protective tariff. He says:
Do Canadian workmen want to make sure of the closing of Canadian factories and of further unemployment? If so they will naturally support a tariff for revenue only.
He then points out that the tariff for revenue as it is applied in England merely taxes the goods they do not produce there such as sugar, fruit and so on, and he ends by saying:
The choice for Canadian workers is between more imported goods and greater unemployment and made in Canada articles and greater oportunities for work at home.
Do the Labour members of this House think that Mr. Moore knows what he is talking about when he says that the very foundation of the Labour market is a protective system?
I also have in my hand the draft of a speech dtelivered by Mr. Stanley Baldwin, Prime Minister of Great Britain, in which he discusses the results of the Safeguarding of Industries Act passed by the Imperial parliament. Let me read to the House the instructions given to the committee by the board of trade regarding the application of the act. The committee were instructed to report on the following:
First, whether the applicant industry-

The Address-Mr. McGibbon
That is, the industry applying for more protection, because that is what it really amounts to.
-is, 'by reason of the volume of employment engaged in the production of the goods to which the application relates, or by reason of the nature of the goods produced, an industry of substantial importance.
Now I want the House to note this:
Second, whether foreign goods of the class or description to which the application relates are being imported into, and retained for consumption in, the United Kingdom in abnormal quantities.
Then follow these further instructions:
Third, whether the foreign goods so imported are being sold or offered for sale in the United Kingdom at prices which are below the prices at which similar goods can be profitably manufactured or produced in the United Kingdom.
Fourth, whether by reason of the severity and extent of such competition employment in the manufacture or production of such goods in the United Kingdom is being, or is likely to be, seriously affected.
Fifth, whether such exceptional competition comes largely from countries where the conditions are so different from those in this country as to render the competition unfair.
Then this note is added by the board of trade :
Com,petition for the purpose of such inquiry is not to be deemed unfair unless it arises from one or more of the following causes,-
I submit, Mr. Speaker, that these causes decidedly apply to Canada to-day.
Depreciation of currency operating so as to create an export bounty.
Is not that the great handicap that the shoe industry, the woollen industry and other of our industries are under to-day?
Subsides, bounties or other artificial advantages.
Is not that the very same thing that the member for iSouth Oxford (Mr. Sutherland) called attention to this afternoon? Is it fair for the dairymen of this country to be subjected to the competition of Australian butter producers not only under the unequal terms of the Australian treaty but under the further disadvantage that their rivals are receiving a bounty of six cents a pound on the butter they export? These are the instructions that were given by the British Board of Trade to those administering the provisions of that special legislation passed to protect the industries and the workingmen of Great Britain.


James Shaver Woodsworth: Mr. Speaker, the
hon. gentleman has indicated the attitude of Mr. Baldwin, the Conservative Prime Minister of England. Would he point out to the House the position taken by Mr. Ramsay MacDonald, leader of the Labour party of Great Britain?


Peter McGibbon: I leave the hon. member to look after his own. I am looking after
the workingmen of my constituency. It is my constituency, as I stated yesterday, that this government by its policy has crucified the labouring men of Canada. The greatest crime that can be charged against any government, Mr. Speaker, is that by its policies it makes it impossible for the people to live in their native land. I contend that this government by its policies has driven out over five hundred thousand of the best workingmen of Canada.


Mr. McLEAN (Melfort):: Does the hon.
gentleman contend that the government has done so by heavy reductions of the customs duties?


Peter McGibbon: I say partly yes, partly no. It has brought about these deplorable conditions by putting our workingmen up against the competition of the sweatshops of Europe without any protection. Let me refer a little further to Mr. Baldwin's speech. He analyzes the results so far of the operation of the Safeguarding of Industries Act, and points out-I wish the hon. member for Labelle (Mr. Bourassa) were in his seat to take note of this -that the act has been the means of creating new industries in England. He states what we all know to foe the case, that before and during the war optical instruments, lenses, X-ray equipment and similar goods had to be procured either from Germany or the United States. When I went to the front, Mr. Speaker, I was forced to buy a set of American-German field glasses because they could not be procured either in Canada or Great Britain. Mr. Baldwin points out that the operation of this act has resulted in industries of a scientific nature and very important to Great Britain being established, industries which are now employing tens of thousands of people who otherwise would1 be idle. I would ask the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Woodsworth) if he knows this to be the fact, that when war broke out the great textile industry of England was in jeopardy because it had been relying on Germany for its dyes. The British government spent tens of millions of pounds in scientific industrial research in order to discover the formula for those dyes, and to-day the textile industry is no longer dependent on outside sources.


James Shaver Woodsworth: May I ask another question? Has the hon. gentleman any means whatever of protecting the actual worker in this country against the cheap labour that is being imported from European countries?


Peter McGibbon: Certainly I have. If
the hon. member will only vote with us and
The Address-Mr. McGibbon

turn this government out, we will put in a government that will protect our workers against that cheap labour.


James Shaver Woodsworth: The hon. gentleman is not offering a bribe?


Peter McGibbon: Well, if the hon. member considers any proposal to ensure feeding the wives and children of our workingmen a bribe, I say yes. That is what I am here to accomplish, Mr. Speaker, that is what I am making this speech for-to effect such a change as will bring back the labouring men of my constituency, who have been driven out of their homes and their country by the policies of this government.
Now, Sir, what else has this government done to bring about unemployment? It has raised the cost of the workingman's daily bread higher than it has been for some three or four years, and at the same time it has cut down his wages so that he can hardly make the two balance. I have right in my own constituency-and a similar condition prevails in other constituencies, as the member for North Renfrew (Mr. Cotnam) said recently-men engaged in the hard and laborious lumber industry who are working for twenty-five to thirty dollars a month, and trying to keep their wives and families on those wages. I ask the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre if he thinks he could do so. Clever and all as he is, I will wager that he could not.
Now, what is happening to our labouring men? As I said, half a .million have been driven out by the policies of the government. What would that half a million be worth to Canada to-day if we had them here and a govem-men in power with a policy that would ensure them employment? Five hundred thousand people working at $1,000 a year would mean a lot of money, and that money would be spent in this country, and every man and woman in the country would derive a certain amount of benefit from its expenditure. That would help to solve our national railway problem, to a (certain extent, at least; it would help to pay the national debt of this country, and help us to bear the great burden of taxation that is driving the people of this country almost into the earth. While on this subject I might quote the ex-Minister of Finance, the hon. member for West York (Sir Henry Drayton),, who a year ago made the statement in this House that there was being brought into this country $700,000,000 worth of goods which we had the machinery and the workmen here to (make ourselves. Let us analyze that for a moment. When I say that labour accounts for 70 per cent of

the cost of (the manufactured article, I think I am well within the mark. Now 70 per cent of $700,000,000 is $490,000,000; $490,000,000 would pay $1,000 a year to 490,000 men; it would give employment to nearly half a million men, and we could provide that work for them if we would only do what any patriotic, reliant, self-respecting people ought to do, give employment ito our own people by making the goods we need at home.
Now I want to leave the labouring man for a moment and go to some other parts of my constituency-but no, I will finish him up while I am at it. The hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Woodsworth), if he will go back to his constituency and laugh at those who are trying to get bread for the labouring men of this country, is not worthy to represent them in this House. I have in my hand a brief analysis of the shoe industry in this country, and I take this up because it relates to industries that are located in my riding, industries which are more or less dependent on the shoe and leather industry in this country. I want to bring to the attention of the House this fact, that this government has lowered the duty on boots and shoes to such an extent, and by treaties and other means has so wiped out the protection we had against the depreciated currencies of other countries, that our own industries can hardly live. The French treaty came into force, I think, in 1922, 4 p.m. and I want to (give the House a few figures to show what effect it has had upon industry in this country. I have a statement here from the Bureau of Statistics showing the importation of boots and shoes into this country during the last five years. In 1921 and 1922 practically none were imported, but for the following years the importations were as follows:
Pairs, Men's sizes
1923		 264,124
1924		 329,158
1925		 306,041
Nothing in 1921 and 1922, but in the next three years we imported nearly 1,000,000 pairs. Now let us look at children's sizes. The same conditions existed in 1921 and 1922, but in 1923, after the French treaty had come into force, our importations were as follows:
Pairs, children's sizes
1923		 57,040
1924		 131.481
1925		 145,537


James Shaver Woodsworth: Did these boots
come from France? Is that the implication? What was the source of origin?


Peter McGibbon: It is pretty hard to
trace the origin, but a lot of them, we

The Address-Mr. McGibbon
suspect, were made in Belgium, Germany, and France, shipped to England, and then came into tihis country under the British preference. Right here let me say that I do not believe in continuing the British preference in the manner in which it is operating to-day. I do not believe in taking the Bread out of the mouths of Canadian workingmen and giving it to the Englishman, the Frenchman, the German, the Belgian or anybody else.


Mr. McMILLAN:: Does not the hon.
member know that letting these goods come in cheaper is putting the bread in the mouths of our workingmen, rather than taking it away from them?


Peter McGibbon: No, I do not know
anything of the kind, because it is not true; but I do know it makes more profit for the middleman, and puts our own men out of work.


Mr. YOUNG (Weyburn):: Does the hon.
member not admit that these importations * put boots and shoes on our workingmen's feet?


Peter McGibbon: I do not think they
would put them on their heads. If I might digress for a moment, that puts me in mind of the man who came to this country and went into a butcher shop and bought a couple of pounds of beef. He asked how much it was, and the butcher told him fifty cents. "Why" said the man, "I could buy that at home for a shilling." "Then why didn't you stay there," said the 'butcher, "and get it for a shilling?" "Well," said the man, "the trouble is I could not get the shilling."
I want to give now a few figures as to our importations of boots, shoes and/ slippers with felt uppers. Here again we imported practically nothing in 1921 and 1922, but for the following years the figures are as follows:
Pairs, with felt uppers
1923		 151,858
1924		 221,680
1925		 408,590
Let me give you next the boot and shoe imports from the United Kingdom, and this is where we suspect that German, Belgian and French goods are getting into Canada from the United Kingdom:
Pairs
1922		 342,000
1923		 653,000
1925	 800,000
Is it any wonder that the boot and shoe industry of this country is being put out of business? Is it any wonder that the workingmen of this country whom my hon. friend from Winnipeg North Centre is supposed to
represent, are walking the streets to-day through our sending our money over to England, France and Germany, and feeding the workingmen of those countries in preference to our own? I am one of those who believe in this species of Canadianism, to feed our own Canadians before we feed Germans or Belgians or anybody else, and that is the spirit I am trying to get over to the House this afternoon, because upon the shoe industry are dependent many others which have been adversely affected. We had in this country four years ago fifteen large tanning industries; how many have we today? Six. Nine out of the fifteen have been put out of business. Why? Simply because the importations of leather goods which have been coming into this country under the policy of this government have made it impossible for our own industries to get prices at which they could continue to operate. In my home town we had two of the largest tanneries in the British Empire. They were putting through 3,000 sides of hide a day. What have we got to-day? For four years they have not put through a single hide. One of the firms has tom down its buildings; the other is closed indefinitely. The result is that hundreds of workingmen who are dependent for a livelihood on these two indus-tires have been driven out of the town and district, and in some cases out of the country, in order to secure employment and provide bread for themselves and their families. My sympathy goes out, first and always, to the man who gets up before daylight and toils all day in order to provide a living for himself and his family. I say that any government that deprives that man of his living and takes the bread out of the mouths of his family and himself, is going to be opposed by me.
Now let me deal with the woollen industry -and I hope to be in a better position to satisfy the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Woodsworth), as to the origin of the goods to which I have been referring. The woollen industry received the first blow from the Liberal party shortly after its return to power in 1896, when it introduced the British preference. It has been receiving blows time after time ever since, until to-day over twenty establishments that were engaged in it are out of business. To my mind, Mr. Speaker, that industry is quite important, to this country, for many reasons. In the first place, these factories are using up the natural wool of this country, and are in a position to use it in different localities, because over sixty per cent of them are scattered through the small towns
The Address-Mr. McGibbon

and villages all over the country. This industry, I say, received its first blow after the change of government in 1896, and since the revision of the tariff made by the Laurier government at that time no less than eighty-eight woollen mills have gone out of business in Canada. Now how does that affect the farmer? The result is shown by the fact that there are no more sheep in this country to-day than there were thirty years ago.


An hon. MEMBER:: Not as many.


Peter McGibbon: The number is practically the same. I want to tell my hon. friend the member for Winnipeg North Centre, who is supposed to represent labour here but who, I think, misrepresents it, some of the difficulties that these men are up against. They have to compete, for instance, against lower wages and longer hours in the Old Country; they have to compete against inferior working conditions, and a lower standard of living; and then in the case of France and Germany they must compete against the evils of a depreciated currency, exemplified in the case of France by the falling in value of the franc from about 20 cents to 4\ cents. Many of the importations of which I complain, I can tell my hon. friend, came not from England directly but from France under the French treaty. I have the figures and I will give them to my hon. friend.


James Shaver Woodsworth: Are we to understand from the hon. gentleman that the hours of labour are longer in Great Britain than they are in Canada?


Peter McGibbon: The hours of labour of workingmen? Yes.


James Shaver Woodsworth: I should like to have the exact figures.


Peter McGibbon: I can tell the hon. gentleman that the statement is a fact. Everybody knows that the British labour men work longer hours than they do in Canada.


James Shaver Woodsworth: Great Britain, I said


Peter McGibbon: 
Sir HENRY DRAYTON:: Has that guarantee been given yet, or is it Still to come?


Mr. CAHILL:: It has been given.


Henry Lumley Drayton: Does the thirty per cent regulation apply to that also?


Frank S. Cahill: I do not know about that.
I understand, and I believe my hon. friend will bear me out, it is a common regulation between companies under an agreement of this kind.


Henry Lumley Drayton: Not with a
mileage like that. It means the guarantee is worth nothing.


Frank S. Cahill: The Quebec government are to give a grant of $50,000 a year and the Noranda mines have guaranteed' $20,000 a year for the first five years, making altogether a guarantee of $350,000 which Sir Henry Thornton will get from the Quebec government and this company in lieu of any loss in operation and the expense of constructing the road. Instead of condemning Sir Henry Thornton and the government for this deal, my hon. friend from West York should commend them for making a deal that will save to the Canadian National Railways $350,000 in the next five years.


Henry Lumley Drayton: I do not think I once mentioned the name of Sir Henry Thornton. My whole point was whether the country had a right to believe in the word of the government. Apparently it has not.


Frank S. Cahill: The whole thing seems to hinge on, I was going to say, hair-aplitting-
The Address-Mr. Cahill


Henry Lumley Drayton: No, common
honesty.


Frank S. Cahill: -but perhaps that is not the word. I will say that the whole thing seems to hinge on a technicality. My hon. friend is raising a point on a technicality when the result of whatever he claims is wrongdoing, if any, is to save to the Canadian National Railways $350,000 in the next five years. It ill-becomes my hon. friend to condemn that action when- he cannot point to any previous arrangement whereby the Canadian National Railways were reimbursed by any -provincial government in the Dominion. That the territory is good was proven by the fact that the Ontario government were willing to build a railway into it. They had a charter to build and they were anxious to build. The Canadian Pacific will, I believe, build into the territory, and I hope they will. I also hope the Ontario government will eventually construct a railway in there. I would be glad to see all three of them build railways into that territory, 'because the construction would be warranted. But the Quebec government had spent millions of dollars in colonizing the territory along the Transcontinental railway at not one dollar of expense to the Dominion government while we were spending considerable sums of money in attempting to colonize other parts of Canada. The Quebec government brought these people in, opened up roads for them, built bridges and developed the country far 'beyond anything else that has been developed in Canada during the same period.
I would like to have the hon. member for West York pay a visit to the Abitibi country and also the Rouyn country and see for himself the benefits that will accrue to that territory by the construction- of these railways.
I am sure that if he -did, instead of criticizing, he would commend Sir Henry Thornton and the board of directors for the -action they have taken. The work is necessary), -and the only point of difference between my hon. friends opposite and h-on. members on this side is the method by which it was done. The only means by which the -Canadian National Railways could get an offer of $350,000 was that which they adopted, and it was under -a Statute passed by my hon. friends opposite. N-ow they quarrel as to which statute should be adopted, the one -passed in 1919 or the one passed in 1915. That point is of no concern to the people of Canada, except that the method adopted is one by which the people will save $350,000.


Mr. GEARY:: Does my hon. friend wish to give the House to understand that the grant of $350,000 is conditional on this matter being

put through not in the House but by order in council?


Frank S. Cahill: My hon. friend knows very well that the Canadian National Railways could not ask the Quebec government to construct -a line of railway in that province.


Henry Lumley Drayton: Why not?


Frank S. Cahill: When the people of the
province of Quebec are shouldering their part of the responsibility for the -Canadian National Railways why should they -be asked to contribute to the construction of a branch line m that -province when we are -building branch lines all over Canada at the expense of the Dominion? Why should the people of Quebec be made to pay the shot in this case? That seems to me the whole burden of the grievance of my hon. friends opposite.


Mr. NICHOLSON:: Can the hon. member point to anything in the lease between the government and the Rouyn company that indicates that the Canadian National Railways are building the railway?


Frank S. Cahill: I have read neither the lease nor the agreement, but if I did and did not have more information on the subject than my hon. friend I should be ashamed to make any statements in this House in regard to the construction of this railway such as he has made. He made the statement, only last nigh-t I think, that no tenders were called for, whereas as a matter of fact tenders were required. The contract was let to Messrs. Chambers, McQuigge & McCaffrey and Foley Bros., all respectable people, whose head office is at 611 Excelsior Life Building, Toronto.


George Brecken Nicholson: I rise to a question of privilege:	I did not say that no tenders
had been called for. The statement I made was that under the terms of this agreement there was no obligation on the part of the Canadian National Railways to call for tenders and that the road was being -built by a dummy company.


Frank S. Cahill: I-t would not matter much
whether it was -being built by a dummy company or by a loud speaker company; that would neither help nor hinder the work. The fact is that the railway is necessary and that it is being built at the lowest possible cost. The Canadian National Railways have been assisted by the government of Quebec and the Noranda mines -to the extent of $350,000 to reimburse them for any losses in operation in the next five years, and I am sure the people of Canada will approve of that kind of railway construction at any time, in any

The Address-Mr. Stewart (Leeds)
part of the Dominion, especially when the Canadian National Railways are being protected as they are in this case.


Henry Lumley Drayton: If I follow the hon. gentleman's argument, he thinks that it was unnecessary to come to parliament in this instance because the road was necessary. Well, is it necessary to come to parliament only when the road is unnecessary?


Frank S. Cahill: I did not say anything about the necessity for coming to parliament; I was leaving that argument to my hon. friend.


Henry Lumley Drayton: That is the
point.


Frank S. Cahill: That point does not enter
into it at all. The Canadian National Railways, under a statute passed by the Conservative government between 1911 and 1921, were at liberty to construct the railway in this way and apparently it was a distinct advantage to them to do so inasmuch as they got an advantage of $350,000. Evidently they considered that worth while and they came to the government for its sanction and obtained it. The railway will be constructed and will be of great benefit not only to that part of the province of Quebec but to the Dominion as a whole.


Arthur Meighen: If it would be entirely
wrong for the Canadian National Railways to apply for a subsidy direct to the government of the province of Quebec, how is it right for them to get it indirectly?


Frank S. Cahill: Being wrong in asking and
wrong in getting are two different things. 1 do not think it would be wrong for the Canadian National Railways to look for assistance from any province if they could get it, but what province could justify giving it?


Arthur Meighen: The virtue of the action of the Quebec government is in getting the thing done through a dummy company?


Frank S. Cahill: I am not interested in how
they do it so long as the road is built. The road will be of advantage to the district and of advantage to the Dominion as a whole, and the people will approve of its construction especially when the Canadian National Railways are to be reimbursed to the extent of $350,000.


Mr. H. A. STEWART (Leeds):: The volume of congratulation to yourself, Mr. Speaker, has been so extensive, so general, so sincerely expressed by the many members who have spoken on this occasion that perhaps nothing can or should be added to it. In fact it is possible that it may be detracted from somewhat by over-repetition. I however desire
to associate myself with and to concur in what has been said so kindly regarding you, Sir, and to thank you for your kindness to me when a new member of the last parliament. I fully appreciate the consideration and the encouragement you showed me among other new members then, and the same consideration and encouragement which you are extending to the new members of this parliament.
Before proceeding with my address I want to refer briefly to the argument of the hon. member for Pontiac (Mr. Cahill), who seems either accidentally or deliberately to have avoided the real point of the dispute in this matter. On this side of the House we feel that this railway should have been built in the same way as any other and that the same proceedings, with the approval of parliament, should have been followed as in the case of any other branch line of the Canadian National Railways. A special bill should have been introduced and discussed in the House, and parliament should have been consulted as to the course to be adopted. I can see no difficulty, I can see no obstacle, I can see nothing to prevent the Canadian National Railways from getting all the benefits which they have derived in connection with this undertaking by taking the proper open daylight course such as they ought to have taken. But the difficulty is that we apparently have launched upon a course of procedure quite the opposite to that which should have been followed. We are embarking upon large capital expenditures in connection with our National railways without consulting parliament and without obtaining the proper authority, and that is what we complain of on this side of the House. We do not suggest that the railway was unnecessary, that it will not be of advantage; we object to the method that was adopted to secure its construction and the deception that was practised upon parliament.
We are considering a motion in connection with the Speech from the Throne, and the presentation of a Speech from the Throne necessarily suggests a consideration of the conditions under which that 'Speech is introduced. -the conditions as they exist in the government, the conditions as they exist in parliament, and the conditions as they exist in the country as a whole. And I think we are all agreed that at this time these conditions are peculiar; they are indeed exceptional. They are conditions such as have not occurred before in the history of Canada and such as we hope will never occur again. What are the conditions in the present situation? We have a Speech presented to the House of Commons through the mouth of His Excellency the
1322	COMMONS
The Address-Mr. Stewart (Leeds)
Governor General by a government without a head-a headless, spineless skeleton of a government. We have this Speech presented to us for consideration by a government supported by a minority party in this House, and the Speech deals in the most casual and superficial way with the important issues that were discussed during the campaign.
Let us make a brief review and see if we can arrive at an accurate estimate of present conditions. The last parliament consisted of 235 members. The government of the day was supported by a majority over all other parties and groups. It is true it was a small majority, but it was a reliable majority. The official opposition consisted of 51 members. The group to our left numbered between 60 and 70 members, all of whom were friendly to and were really allies of the government. The Prime Minister decided to dissolve parliament, although it had more than one year to run. Speaking of conditions as they then existed, he said at Richmond Hill:
That brings me to the situation with which at the moment the government is faced. As a government we can carry on until 1927 if we so desire. As I have already said, I have not the least doubt we shall be able to command suoh support as we all along have had in the House of Commons at another session; but shall we be able to do more than that? That is the question I have put to everyone of my colleagues in the government and to not a few of the members. It is a question I now put to you who have honoured me with your representation in the House of Commons. It is a question I put to the electorate of this country. Is it sufficient that as a government we should continue in office, drawing our indemnities and salaries as members and ministers and enjoying the other fruits of office when great national questions press for solution, with which for want of an adequate majority in parliament we are unable to cope.
And he added:
I would say, further, I do not believe that any 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. In both Great Britain and the United States the electorate has shown within the very recent past that it wishes no more of either form, that what [DOT]each believes the existing situation requires is a national party representative of all parts of the country, sufficiently strong in the representation it sends to parliament to ensure the carrying out by the government of its plans and policies.
A few days later, after dissolution had taken place, he said:
If we were again faced with the situation that confronted us in the last four years, I should ask for another dissolution of parliament to get this matter straightened out, until we got a majority sufficient to jneet the country's needs.
Then he proceeded:
'Parliament was dissolved because the government felt it could not bring in reforms, could do no more than IMr. H. A. Stewart.]
draw salaries without a clear majority. If we should ever be faced again with conditions such as obtained in the last four years, I would not hesitate to again call upon the Governor General to dissolve parliament, and would continue until some party secures a majority to enable it to carry on the affairs of the country.
So, Mr. Speaker, we had an election called by the Prime Minister at his own time and on terms which he himself laid down specifically and clearly. By his declaration on that occasion he entered into an implied, if not an expressed, contract with the country that if those conditions were not met he would no longer attempt to carry on. Well, Sir, we have had that election, and the conditions laid down by the Prime Minister as the only conditions upon which he would continue to hold office have not been met. Notwithstanding this fact, in the face of his failure to secure the endorsement of his government at the polls, which he said was absolutely essential to him and his party, he stills clings to office. The election has demonstrated that we have a government absolutely unable to carry on-and worse still, without the moral courage to resign.
What is the position of our friends to the left? They have been returned as a party of only 24 members. To-day the Progressive and the other minority groups are sitting on the safety valve of public opinion, and the inevitable explosion will destroy them and their allies. But what is the position of the official opposition, Sir? It has come back with its membership more than doubled. From the way the people voted is not their intention perfectly clear? I submit there is no doubt whatever that the government got its mandate on October 29-not to carry on, but to resign.
If the government expected to be supported in the new parliament they should have laid down conditions something like the following before they decided on dissolution: We have at the present time a majority in the House of Commons. We are going to dissolve parliament because we cannot carry on successfully. If we get a smaller representation in a larger House as a result of the impending election, we will endeavour to carry on. Instead of not believing in group government, we will perpetuate it-we will perpetuate minority government. 'No, Sir, the people never voted for minority government; indeed1 they never voted for government by any combination of minorities. Their intention was perfectly plain. But what has happened? Instead1 of a government with a clear mandate, and with a strong majority to carry out that mandate, we have a Liberal-Progressive-Labour-Independent government

The Address-Mr. Stewart (Leeds)
attempting to carry on. We have a government that cannot function. On this side of the House we have the largest party, and according to all well-established constitutional practice, we are entitled to be called upon to form an administration. We have a deadlock parliament, we have an anxious people, all because this government took a false step, and refuse to abide by the conditions which it imposed in the election, and because it refuses to recognize the verdict of the people on the 29th of October last.
Then, Mr. Speaker, this House is called and parliament meets, and precedents are cited as to the course we should adopt. The volume and the tenor of the precedents cited are all in the same direction. The government and those supporting them say: We will sweep away and disregard all these precedents. Well, Mr. Speaker, that is the only way for the government to deal with these precedents-just sweep them aside-for if the government paid any attention to them, as they were all against them, they would be unable to carry on. Then they say:	We will
make our own precedents. Mr. Speaker, we have gone out into the wilderness, and we are now wandering there; this parliament is not getting anywhere, this government is not getting anywhere, and we will not get anywhere until we return to the safe, straight path of constitutional practice as shown in the precedents of the past. Some of our friends tell us:	Use your common sense. Very
good advice, of course. Well, my common sense tells me that this government was defeated on the 29th of October; I think the common sense of most members of the House loads them to the same conclusion, and the common sense of the Canadian people undoubtedly leads them to that conclusion.
The Solicitor General (Mr. Cannon) seemed to fear the consequences if the government resigned; he was fearful as to what might happen if the leader of our party were called on to form a government. Fear, Mr. Speaker, is not an attribute of a strong man. The Solicitor General is not a weak'man; he is strong, but his fear in this instance seemed to be almost as great as his fear during the last campaign of the consequences of the next war with Turkey. But his fear was just as groundless. I am sure that nothing serious would have happened; on the contrary, advantage to Canada I think would have resulted from the government having resigned and the leader of this party having been called on to form a government.
That brings me to a consideration of the Speech itself. It is a rather remarkable document. It is in some respects more like the last will of a dying testator, a will that had been brought about by influences imposed upon that testator, and a will that shows that some of the property or assets had been overlooked, because we have no reference in the Speech to the question of Senate reform- surely, a very valuable asset to the Prime Minister in his campaign in some parts of Canada.
Some paragraphs of the Speech from the Throne are not open to any objection whatever. There is one referring to the death of Queen Alexandra, the bereave-
5 p.m. ment in the royal family. The royal family occupy a very high, a very exalted place in the esteem and affection of the Canadian people and of the British people in all parts of the empire, and it is perfectly fitting and proper that there should be a reference in the Speech to this bereavement. The crown of the King of England rests very securely upon his head', notwithstanding the convulsions of the late war, and British institutions are as firmly established, in fact, perhaps more firmly established than they were before that catastrophe which shook the world to its foundations. Britain is paying her debts, even if she does not collect her own from those who are indebted to her. She is reducing her taxation and continuing to hold her place of leadership among the nations of the world in the conferences of the League of Nations. The Prince of Wales, noble representative of the royal family, visiting outlying parts of the empire and distant parts of the world, is carrying with him the goodwill and sympathy of a mighty empire, and begetting for himself and for that empire sympathy and goodwill in all parts of the world. In some respects he is perhaps the best ambassador the British Empire has.
The Speech refers to the growing prosperity of Canada, a subject upon which there has been a good deal of controversy, one in respect to which there is considerable difference of opinion. The Speech, however, does not, as is usual, express any thanksgiving to the Almighty for contributing to this increased prosperity. Perhaps that was deliberately omitted, perhaps it was intentional, because if proper credit is given in that direction there is very little credit left for any other source.
Reference is also made to our export trade. Of course, it is desirable to have a large export trade, providing it is an export trade of the right character, providing it is not an excessive export trade of the raw materials
1324	COMMONS
The Address-Mr. Stewart (Leeds)
which should be retained and manufactured in Canada. We have, of course, a large export trade of agricultural products, due to good crops and to good prices, for which this government is not entitled to the slighest iota of credit. But it is entitled, Mr. Speaker, to criticism for not having adopted a policy that would retain for development in Canada the largest possible amount of our natural resources, and that would not permit the export of these natural resources until they had been finished as far as possible.
There is also a reference to the increased earnings of our railways. These, of course, are encouraging, and they are due in no small measure to the excellent crop to which reference has been made.
Reductions in taxation are mentioned, but I think the Canadian people when they look around will have difficulty in finding in a practical way any reductions in taxation in Canada. Our record in that respect does not compare favourably with that of the adjoining country or of other countries of the world. We have all the taxes that we were paying when this government came into power, and we have in addition some new ones, and we do not see much sign of relief.
, The next subject that I shall deal with is immigration. Mr. Speaker, the history of the last four years in this important field, so far as Canada is concerned, has been one'of disappointing failure. It is really a tragedy when we think of it; when we attempt to review it; when we think of what has happened and of what might have been. The four years during which it should have been easy to get the most desirable immigrants from Europe have been allowed to pass with a minimum of accomplishment in this direction. Following the war, conditions, as we all know, were unsettled in Europe. Expert workmen were prepared to leave their shattered homes and seek employment and occupation in other countries, particularly in Canada. Yet these have not been secured to this country. We have not been able to get the numbers of immigrants which other parts of the empire have obtained. We have not been able to settle these people on our lands, and have not been able to get any adequate or proper return for the many millions of dollars we have expended in this direction. There are too many agencies, too many branches, working in connection with this immigration question. What we need is a consolidation of these efforts. What we want is a policy such as was outlined from this side of the House the other day by the hon. member for Victoria, B.C. (Mr. Tolmie), a policy that I am sure must commend itself to all
fMr. H. A. Stewart.]
who have made a study of this important question. We need all the immigrants we can get from the British Isles. They at least understand one, and in some cases two, of our official languages. They are familiar with our institutions, and with our habits, they can readily adapt themselves to conditions in Canada. We should adopt, as the hon. member for Victoria, B.C., said, a colonization scheme that will settle these people upon our lands.
But the saddest feature of it all, Mr. Speaker, is the emigration of our people during these years to the United States of America. Over 500,000 of them have gone to the neighbouring republic, and what is the use of bringing immigrants from Europe to Canada at great expense when we fail to adopt a policy that will retain our own Canadian people, and provide them with work and wages in our own country. That, I think, is the saddest part of this whole question. And yet we on this side have been imploring, even urging, the adoption of a policy which will give these men employment in Canada, that will give them work and a pay-roll, that will stop this leak of our best young men to the country to the south of us, and at the same time will assist in solving our railway problem and our industrial problem.
The next item in the Speech from the Throne with which I will deal is rural credits. And here I wish to point out that this question has been pressed upon the government by those who have been particularly interested in it for some years. But it has Deen evaded by the government. They have trifled with it; and last session we had the farce of legislation presented for our consideration which simply had the effect of assisting the provinces to do something which they already had the power to do. Of course nothing came of it. Now, Mr. Speaker, I think we must go back a bit and consider the provisions of the British North America Act in connection with this matter. The Fathers of Confederation had a conception as to a division of powers between the provinces and the Dominion, and that act provides that the provinces shall deal with matters of local _ concern and with property and civil rights in their respective jurisdictions. We have in several of the provinces legislation dealing with this question of rural credits.
I submit that it is one primarily and principally, if not exclusively, for action by the provincial government. The conditions in the various provinces differ, and the laws regarding real property, of course, are different in the several provinces, or at least may be so. And all the Dominion should be asked to do is to pass any enabling legislation that may

The Address-Mr. Stewart (Leeds)
be necessary to permit individual corporations, or the provinces themselves, to deal with this matter in the light of their local conditions, with a view to their local requirements, and in harmony with existing legislation upon the subject. Funds should not be provided by the Dominion government for this purpose. If such action is taken we shall have difficulty and we shall have conflict of jurisdiction. Furthermore I submit that if we enter into this field we shall necessarily have to create a new organization and incur much added expense. Therefore, my contention is that we here should only pass such enabling legislation as may be necessary to empower the provinces to deal with this question themselves.
Then, Mr. Speaker, the next subject dealt with in the Speech is that of the tariff, a very large, a very wide, a very complicated subject. But it is not necessary for us on this side of the House to say much upon this question. The Canadian people know where we stand; they know what our policy is. We went to the country boldly and fearlessly upon that policy with 51 followers and we came back with 116, a magnificent endorsement of our fiscal programme, which after all was the leading issue in the late campaign. Hon. gentlemen opposite picture us as a high tariff party. They did that during the campaign, and if the result is as I have stated it to be, then it is pretty clear evidence to me that the Canadian people are very generally in favour of a fairly high tariff at this time. But the Speech from the Throne contains all sorts of meaningless expressions, such as that a general increase in the customs tariff would prove detrimental to the country's continued prosperity, and prejudicial to national unity. Well, Mr. Speaker, with me agriculture comes first in this country. There is no occupation that is attended with greater hazard, and where the returns for the industry employed in that occupation are smaller than they are in the case of agriculture, and I contend, Sir, that we have ample evidence before this House at the present time-and have had it for months, yes for years-[DOT] that this industry needs additional protection. I contend, Sir, that there is ample evidence before this House, and has been for months- yes, for years-that this industry needs additional protection. If anything were needed to convince us of that, it is the representations that have been sent to the government on behalf of the different agricultural societies in this country from time to time as to the effect of the operation of the Australian treaty. That treaty, which was brought into
force on the 1st of October, 1925, and was subsequently extended by order in council to apply to New Zealand, I opposed when it came up in the House. I felt it my duty to do so in the interests of agriculture. I foresaw that under its provisions the dairy industry would be seriously affected by the imports that would inevitably follow, and the happenings of the last few weeks have abundantly established the soundness of that view. We have an import into Canada of over 2,000,000 pounds of butter from Australia, and that has had the effect of depressing the price of butter to the Canadian farmer at a time of the year when his cost of production is greatest and the cost of production in Australia is low. In other words, this competition takes place when it is summer in Australia and winter in Canada.
I think I should put on record a comparison between the rates of duty prevailing against Canadian products and those against foreign products that come into Canada. Under the provisions of the Australian treaty butter comes into Canada under a duty of one cent a pound, but Canadian butter going into Australia faces a duty of six cents a pound. Cheese from Australia comes in free, while Canadian cheese going into Australia pays six cents a pound. Eggs come from Australia free of duty, but meet a duty of eighteen cents a dozen if we send them from Canada to Australia. Fresh and smoked meats coming from Australia to Canada pay one-half cent a pound, but if we attempt to send those articles to Australia we are met by a duty of five cents a pound. We must bear in mind that in connection with butter and perhaips other farm products of Australia there is a bonus, or something which is the equivalent of a bonus, either from the public funds or from other sources, for their export to Canada. The handicap under which this Canadian industry is placed, therefore, is apparent; there is an unfair advantage in favour of its Australian and New Zealand competitors, and the failure of the government to take into consideration the prime duty of protecting the agricultural interests of this country is a matter for censure.
The United States tariff against Canadian products should also be considered in this connection. Wheat going to the United States pays 42 cents a bushel. Our duty against American wheat is 12 cents a bushel. Corn going from Canada to the United States pays 15 cents a bushel, but United States corn comes into Canada free. Wheat flour pays $2.04 a barrel going to the United States and 50 cents a barrel coming into Canada. Hay
1326	COMMONS
The Address-Mr. Stewart (Leeds)
going into the United States pays $4 a ton, but American hay coming into Canada pays $2 a ton. Fruits pay 35 per cent going into the United States and 25 per cent coming here. Butter pays 8 cents a pound going to the United States and 4 cents a pound coming to Canada. Cheese pays 5 cents a pound going to the United States but only 3 cents a pound coming to Canada. Eggs pay 8 cents a dozen going to the United States but only 3 cents a dozen coming here. I contend that this is unfair and unjust and that the interests of agriculture in this country are not being looked after and1 protected by this government as they should be. I wish to point out the policy of this party as expressed by our leader, that when he comes into power the very first schedule of the tariff to be raised will be that relating to agricultural products.
It was said that the issue in the province of Quebec was low tariff. The address of the member for Kent, N.B. (Mr. Doucet) indicates that there was something low in connection with that campaign-and it was not the tariff; I think it was the tactics that were low in the province of Quebec. I regret very much that the Minister of Justice (Mr. Lapointe) has not seen fit to rebuke the statements or utterances which have been placed on Hansard by some of his followers in that province, and I ask him to do so at the first opportunity. If he does so, his eloquent speeches in other parts of Canada in favour of the union and the necessity for national unity will have very much greater effect.
Now Mr. Speaker the question of the tariff opens up a very wide range of discussion, and we will of course have an opportunity of dealing with the subject when the budget is brought down. The only other matter to which I wish to give some consideration at this time is the proposed appointment of an advisory tariff board, which was referred to in the Speech from the Throne. What is to be the scope and power of this board-? Is it simply a device to enable the government to sidestep this question in the House of Commons? I submit that before any tariff board is appointed this House should decide the principle upon which that commission is to undertake the investigation. Are we to have a tariff that is framed on a protective basis, as we advocate it should be? Are we to have a low tariff, or are we to have a tariff for revenue? Before this tariff board is appointed and called upon to function, these questions and principles must be decided in the House. Let me refer to two incidents

which I think are very important in this connection. The first is the resolution passed by the legislature of Saskatchewan in the year 1923; and I think it is relevant now in view of the fact that the gentleman who has been premier of that province has become a member of the government. I refer to the Hon. Mr. Dunning. The resolution that was passed on March 1, 1923, in the legislature of Saskatchewan reads:
Resolved, that in the opinion of this assembly, it is the duty of the government of Canada to introduce legislation which shall have for its effect tihe following:
(1)	An immediate and substantial all-round reduction of the customs tariff.
(2)	The reduction of the customs duty on goods imported from Great Britain to one-half of the rates charged under the general tariff, and that further gradual uniform reductions be made to the remaining tariff on British imports that will insure complete free trade between Great Britain and Canada.
That was the view of that gentleman at that time. I think I should refer to tho speech of the Prime Minister in this House on the budget on May 15, 1924. Speaking on that occasion, shortly after the passing of the resolution to which I have referred, the Prime Minister said:
No more tariffs based on the principle of protection- as set forth in the resolution of the Tory party, moved in this debate too late to be accepted-but a tariff based on the principle of revenue.
That was "our policy" in the past-the Laurier-Fielding policy. The words can have no other meaning. That is our policy to-day-the policy of the Liberal party-proceeding step by step towards the goal of greater freedom in matters of trade, never imposing a duty for protection's sake, but always acting on the principle or the basis of a tariff for revenue and revenue only. I repeat this statement in the hearing of hon. members and before this country, this is the position of the Liberal party. We believe in proceeding step by step. We believe when it comes to a question of imposing a duty in having duties framed on a tariff for revenue basis and not on the basis of protection.
That is the statement of the Prime Minister in this House as recorded in Hansard. What is the statement now? What is the position of the government now? Is it still the same? Are they opposed to protection? Is their tariff to be one on a revenue basis? These questions must all be determined before any tariff commission can properly function.
Our position on this matter is perfectly clear. We say that the tariff should be distinctly protective in its character-protection for agriculture, for industry, for labour, for all the interests of Canada on a fair, sound and reasonable basis. That is the policy outlined by my leader; that is the policy for which I stand. That is the policy to which I proclaim my faith and in which I say that the people of Canada expressed their faith on the 29th October last.
Some reference has been made to trade treaties and these have been so ably dealt

The Address-Mr. Stewart (Leeds)
with by the hon. member for Lincoln (Mr. Chaplin) that it is not necessary for me to go over them again. I desire, however, to point out that dn every one of those treaties there has been a substantial loss of revenue to Canada; there has been a substantial decrease of exports to the countries with which those treaties have been made, and there has also in every case been an increase of imports from those countries to the detriment of Canada. We import annually at least $60,000,000 or $70,000,000 worth of farm products that should and could be produced and provided by the Canadian farmer for the Canadian people. We import annually at least $500,000,000 of manufactured products that could and should be produced in Canada for the benefit of the Canadian people. As a matter of fact the government has been tinkering with and nibbling at this tariff until it has unsettled industry and caused capital to lose confidence and to hesitate to embark upon new enterprises. It has closed factories and converted others into simply distributing depots for the products of other countries. It has driven hundreds of thousands of our good Canadian artisans and workmen to go unwillingly to the United States to seek and find there employment which was denied them but which should have been provided for them at home. I again proclaim my faith in my leader and his policy, in the protective policy which he has laid down and which has been so splendidly approved and endorsed by the Canadian people. When a tariff commission is appointed I hope it will be appointed under his leadership, his auspices, and that it will have a protective basis to work on. Why have we delayed so long? We have been told that this was coming. For three or four years the creation of such a commission has been talked about, and all that time there has been uncertainty and inaction. I strongly suspect that this suggested tariff commission is just a device to evade a fair, square, honest dealing with this important question owing to the peculiar complexion of this House and owing to the fact that the statements of policy on the part of the government are so conflicting, confusing and contradictory that it does not know what course to take in this matter.
The next question I want to deal with is the Hudson's Bay railway. The remarkable feature of the Speech from the Throne in its reference to this matter is its intimation that this important railway is to be constructed forthwith-right away.	It cannot wait. But
all the reasons that now exist for the construction of the Hudson Bay railway existed
for four years in the last parliament; all the pressure that could possibly hgve been brought to bear on the subject by those interested was applied during that period. The Hudson Bay railway is a project in respect to which we have had1 a great deal of discussion and debate and upon which there is conflicting information and difference of opinion. Personally I am not satisfied that this railway should be completed, but apparently it is of great importance to the western provinces. They seem to be vitally interested in it and to have faith in it, and I would go a long way toward doing anything reasonable, anything proper, anything calculated to give them a measure of relief, providing that it could be done consistently with the financial resources of this country. But we are at this time under a very heavy burden in connection with our railway commitments, and we cannot lightly or without sufficient information embark upon any enterprise that will mean a large expenditure of money. We are entitled to know in this House whether this means an expenditure of $3,000,000 or $30,000,000. Does it mean simply the completion of the railway to the Hudson bay, or the completion of extensive and expensive terminals? Does it mean extensive dredging, lighthouses, wharves, elevators and all those costly additions that go to make a port on the Hudson bay and to make navigation possible? The House should be informed by the government what this "forthwith" commitment means, and whether it is $3,000,000 or $30,000,000.
Now I have given this matter my best thought and attention and I am going to make a suggestion. As I say, the western provinces are deeply interested in it and I should like to see their hopes realized. I understand that between $20,000,000 and $25,000,000 have already been invested in that enterprise and the government is considering turning over to the western provinces their natural resources. Why can we not turn over the Hudson Bay railway to those provinces along with these natural resources? Let them take the $20,000,000 or $25,000,000 which we have put into it. Let us say to them, "We make a present of this to you and we hope the enterprise will be a success. Do the best you can with it." And let us incorporate in this House a company, not a dummy company, and capitalize it for what has already been spent in this investment, together with such other sum as may be necessary to complete the undertaking, and 'hand that capital over to one, two or three of the western provinces as they may care to take hold of it among themselves. If the three of them will not join, then give it to two, and if two
1328	COMMONS
The Address-Mr. Stewart (Leeds)
of them do not care to undertake it and one will, let that one have it. Let them construct the railway and contribute on their part such capital as may be necessary for the purpose and contribute to any deficits there may be in connection with the operation of it in proportion to their holdings in it; and let them share the profits in the same way. In that way the western provinces would secure the construction of an enterprise in which they are vitally interested. They would have as a free gift the millions of money already contributed by Canada, and they would control the operation of the road on such a basis and with such rates as would be to their advantage. I offer that suggestion for consideration and I sincerely hope that in any case some way may be found that will meet the views of the west without committing us to any large expenditure at this time.
The Speech from the Throne suggests the appointment of a commission to deal with Maritime rights. This government has what I would call a commission policy: it seems that when anything troublesome or difficult arises the government appoints a commission to deal with it and thereby to gain time for itself. It was my pleasure this summer to visit the Maritime provinces and I endeavoured as far as possible to improve the time I spent there by becoming familiar with their problems. I want to testify to the kindly hospitality of those people and to their loyalty, their patriotism and their devotion to Canada as a whole. They have, as they feel and sincerely believe, some grievances and those grievances are in my opinion capable of adjustment to the satisfaction of the Maritime provinces and to the advantage of the Dominion at large. I am extremely sympathetic with their situation, and after listening to the addresses of the gentlemen who represent the Maritime provinces in this House, I submit that we do not need any commission to find out what those grievances are and what the people down there desire by way of remedy. Their difficulties are in part similar to the difficulties that are to be encountered in the rest of Canada; for one thing they are suffering for a want of reasonable protection in connection with some of their industries, as they have said. Their other troubles have largely to do with railway rates. They are able to explain the situation, they are able to state quite clearly just what is wrong with the Maritime provinces; and surely a government that had in the last parliament sixteen supporters from the province of Nova Scotia does not need to appoint a commission to find out what their grievances

are, what disadvantages they are under, and what remedies they require.
The Speech from the Throne is remarkable for some things which it does not contain as well as for what it does contain. It does not contain anything that is in the nature of a policy to deal with the coal question as it affects the whole of Canada.. This question has been discussed at different times in the last two or three years and the Canadian people have arrived at the point where they want to use Canadian coal. And they are prepared to pay a little more for Canadian coal than for American coal. The people are sick and tired of all this jockeying, of all these strikes, and of the fluctuations in price and supply and, as I say,, they are willing to use the Canadian product even at a little greater cost to themselves. The government have known this and yet they have brought down no policy. I submit that it was their duty to do so, and I venture to say that the policy as outlined by my leader (Mr. Meighen) is the one which, in harmony with his other proposals, will bring about the use of Canadian coal by the Canadian people. Let us protect the east and the west from the handicap of distance as we protect the manufacturer from the handicap of mass production and cheap labour abroad, and as we should protect the farmer from the cheap products of other countries. It is just an application of that general all-Canadian policy which, if it were properly worked out, would I am sure solve our difficulties. There would be no trouble in getting a coal supply in Canada for all our requirements, with advantage to the Canadian people and to Canadian labour.
Nothing is said in the Speech about the very important question of hydro-electric power on the St. Lawrence. This has been before the government for consideration for some years and I press again, as I have done on previous occasions, for a bold, courageous dealing with the matter and for immediate action, so far as it is within the power of the government. In connection with the Chicago water steal, we are writing letters but we do not seem to be getting anywhere, and on behalf of all interests along the St. Lawrence river I urge the government to take every possible measure that it can to prevent further injury to the ports and the navigation interests of Canada. One would have thought, Mr. Speaker, that in view of the information which the government had and of the disclosures which have been made that something would have been said in the Speech from the Throne about the frauds practised upon our customs revenue, and that the government would have taken measures to prevent their continuance.	[DOT]

The Address-Mr. Stewart (Leeds)
There is also, of course, Senate reform, which is conspicuous by its absence. The country anxiousfly awaits the policy and the attitude of the government in this connection.
It is true that we have a supplementary Speech from the Throne, as it were, in answer to a question put to the government by an hon. member-we are to have old age pensions. I think Canada can well allow old age pensions to stand over for a while. This policy would probably entail an expenditure of twenty-five or thirty million dollars per annum and I submit this is not the time to impose on the country such a heavy financial burden.
Now, Sir, I claim to represent labour in my constituency, both organized and unorganized. If I understand the attitude of labour, it is favourable to a revision of the tariff that will ensure employment of our own people at home at remunerative wages. The member for North Winnipeg (Mr. Heaps) got into discussion with the member for Muskoka-Ontario (Mr. McGibbon) this afternoon, and I think both hon. gentlemen claim to apeak exclusively for labour. I wish to put on Hansard a letter which recently appeared in an Ottawa paper, written by E. E. Sheppard, of North Bay, and leave those two hon. members to deal with it. It is dated February 9, 1926, and is as follows :
Sir:-As an ardent advocate of the principles of Labour, I wish to protest at the course now being taken by two gentlemen in the House of Commons who presume to speak for Labour. Some years ago in the province of Ontario we had certain gentlemen who claimed they represented Labour in this province. They affiliated themselves with other political bodies for the purpose of creating a Government in this province. This association did Labour in this province inestimable harm. Labour is suffering to-day from the effect of it. And it is with this thought in mind that I wish to raise my voice in protest to the course now being pursued by Mr. Woodsiworth and Mr. Heaps.
I believe those gentlemen owe their seats in Parliament not so much on account of any great policy they have proposed or advocated in the interests of Labour as to their ability to capitalize, or cash in, on the misery and disappointment brought about by their own mismanagement of the Winnipeg strike, and that prejudice rather than good judgment is the guiding spirit of their present course. And should they continue to follow this course Labour in justice to herself should absolutely disown them.
My objection to those gentlemen is that they have associated themselves with a low tariff government and with the grain growers' movement in the west, which was a blow at the very heart of Labour. Either the Progressive movement politically in this country must be smothered or Labour will be forced backward until a condition of serfdom will eventually absorb the working classes. There is no common ground on which Labour can meet the Progressive on his present policy.
Is it not a fact that Labour's ambition and principle is to provide the members of the various crafts with remunerative employment, with a chance to earn a livelihood in their own country, by developing the
talents that the Lord endowed them with that they are entitled to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness? But instead of proposing or supporting a policy of this principle, the two above named gentlemen go along with our friends the Progressives, who, unable to make progress themselves in their daily occupations, are determined to hold back every other element in the country.
How can Mr. Woodsworth or Mr. Heaps look honestly into the faces of the fathers and mothers in their own constituency and tell them they are using their positions as members of parliament in supporting a policy which denies Canadian sons and daughters an opportunity to develop in their own country their inherited talents?
The}' support a policy which will deny the Canadian an opportunity of selling his products in a foreign country, because of that country's tariff against us, and which will allow the foreigner the right to dump his excess production in the Canadian market, thus either forcing the Canadian out of employment and to emigrate to a foreign country, or of accepting wages which do not permit him to maintain the standard of livelihood aimed at by Canadians.
E. E. Sheppard.


Mr. HEAPS:: May I	ask the hon.
gentleman if he knows the writer of that communication?


Hugh Alexander Stewart: I have just
given his name and address.


Abraham Albert Heaps: But does the hon. gentleman know him personally?


Mr. MANION:: I do, Mr. Speaker. He
is a conductor on the Temiskaming and Northern Ontario railway.


Abraham Albert Heaps: I may inform the hon.
member for Leeds that the constituency which I have the honour to represent-


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order.


Abraham Albert Heaps: I may state that I have
received several resolutions from my constituents approving of the stand I have taken in this House.


Hugh Alexander Stewart: The sentiments
contained in this letter express exactly my own sentiments, and also, I think, the sentiments of labour in the constituency of Leeds. If my hon. friend will investigate, I think he will find that the writer, in fact, expresses the sentiments of labour throughout Canada. I resent the claim of the hon. members for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Woodsworth) and North Winnipeg (Mr. Heaps) to speak on behalf of labour in the .constituency of Leeds. I purpose to represent their interests in this House to the best of my ability.
In concluding my remarks, Mr. Speaker, may I again refer to the peculiar conditions in this House? The government gave its solemn undertaking that if it did not obtain a majority of the members returned to this House it would not attempt to carry on. In
1330	COMMONS
The Address-Mr. Stewart (Leeds)
direct violation of that undertaking and in face of the verdict of the people it is still attempting to carry on. The eyes of the people are upon this government and this parliament. The people are anxious and alarmed. They desire-they demand that this political paralysis shall cease. They cannot understand why a small and1 discredited minority can combine with other minority groups in this House to defeat their will. During the last few days we have heard of the probability of closure being resorted to by our friends opposite. Well, Sir, this so-called government cannot closure the thoughts of the people. Let me tell hon. gentlemen sitting on the treasury benches that the people, including many of their own followers, are very much dissatisfied with the effort of this impotent, headless, spineless skeleton of a government to cling to office, and are insistently demanding its resignation. For they realize there can be no improvement in national conditions until this enfeebled government either resigns voluntarily or is driven from power.
We all desire, Mr. Speaker, a united Canada. We desire that Canada shall be united in bonds of sympathy from one ocean to the other. We desire that goodwill shall prevail. We desire that there shall be a common understanding and a common undertaking. We all deplore the dangers of sectional policies and of sectional appeals, and there will be no restored confidence, there will be no improved conditions in Canada, until we return to the administration of our affairs on the principles of responsible government.
I submit, in conclusion, that the Conservative party, the largest party in this House, has the policy and the programme that will unite Canada in one common bond of sympathy, in one common undertaking, and that the resignation of this government and the setting up of a government under the leadership of my hon. leader will restore confidence in Canada as nothing else will. I claim, Mr. Speaker, that he is entitled to lay his platform, his programme and his policy before this House as the leader of the largest group in the House, and that if that policy does not meet with the approval of this House, as I am sure it will, he is entitled to appeal from this House to the Canadian people, and I say here and now that that is the proper course to adopt, and I can promise you, Sir, that we will abide loyally by the decision of the Canadian people.	,
At six o'clock the House took recess.
After Recess
The House resumed at eight o'clock.


Mr. T. L. CHURCH (Toronto Northwest):: Mr. Speaker, as one of the members from the city of Toronto I wish to say that in none of the nine provinces are you more honoured and respected than you are in the province of Ontario. You, Sir, have devoted your life to the public; you have graced many spheres of activity, and it is no wonder that you are honoured and respected in the province from which I come. In the constituency of Toronto Northwest, which I have the honour to represent, many veteran soldiers reside; the Christie Street hospital is situated within its precincts. The soldiers there recall that you gave your only son- a splendid young man-at the age of eighteen years to the service of his country. He could not get to the front too quickly because he thought the war would be over before he had done his part, and he went to the front as a lieutenant. When he succumbed to injuries received on the field of battle it was a great loss to Canada that such a gallant young type of Canadian should fall for his country.
I regret, as one of the members from the Toronto district, that the late Minister of Railways and Canals, Mr. Graham, has not been more generously treated by his party. In Mr. Graham the people of this country had a public servant who served the citizens of Canada with fidelity and with zeal for the public welfare. We in Toronto have learned to appreciate the worth of Mr. Graham because he was largely responsible for the solution of the viaduct problem on our waterfront, having given us a great deal of help to attain this end in the parliamentary session of 1924. I do not think it creditable to the party system of government that he should have been treated in such an unsportsmanlike manner.
We on this side of the House are a very happy family. We have a leader that every Conservative member and every Conservative, I believe, in the country, is proud of. He has given his best years and his great talents to Canada's service and given them in unstinted measure. Owing to his devoted service in behalf of Canada, and as a result of that generous public service, he is to-day a comparatively poor man, and I resent a statement in a paper in my own city-a city in which there is no bigotry but rather a manifestation of real public spirit-in which it attacked the leader of our party. When the Conservative party wants a head it will not go to the Evening Star, a newspaper which

The Address-Mr. Church
has been the hangman and undertaker for every party it has supported or supporting. This is the same journal which tried to crucify Sir Adam Beck and the hydroelectric movement in Ontario. It is the same which ridiculed the late Sir James Whitney. It did its best to wreck the Hardy-Ross government, and with its championship of reciprocity in 1911 it helped to defeat the late revered leader of the Liberal party, Sir Wilfrid Laurier, a statesman whose name will always be respected in Ontario. The same paper went over to the Conservative party and forced its views on Sir William Hearst in reference to the Ontario Temperance Act, in an attempt to solve the temperance problem. I am grateful that I am not indebted to it for any support. The Toronto Evening Star also forced itself on the Raney-t)rurv government-the so-called Labour-Farmer government-and you all know what happened to them.
I wi^h to refer to a statement made in this House a month ago as to a statement alleged to have been made with respect to the soldiers by the premier of the province of Quebec, the Hon. Mr. Taschereau. I was sorry the hon. member made the statement, because Mr. Taschereau is one of the most progressive premiers in Canada. He is a great Canadian; he has always shown himself to be a fair-minded and honourable man and has invariably received a hearty welcome when he visited the city of Toronto. I learned with sorrow that Mr. Taschereau was quoted, or misquoted, as saying in a public statement that 60,000 Canadians were buried in France because the head of the majority group in this House, the Right Hon. Arthur Meighen, had signed the Military Service Act. I come from a city which sent 60,000 soldiers to the Great war. These men enlisted and went to the war, but not under the Military Service Act; ninety-nine per cent of them went voluntarily to the front. Five thousand soldiers from the city of Toronto are lying dead in Flanders' Fields. There are few of 60,000 who enlisted under the Military Service Act buried in Flanders or in France; very few of that glorious 60,000 weTe conscripted. I am very sorry to see that statement appear in the press, because it is not correct.
I do not see very many of my Progressive friends here to-night. This afternoon they all walked out of the chamber-all but one or two. I say that their free trade policy has been responsible for the exodus which has occurred from the Dominion of Canada during the past few years. The only difference that I see between a Liberal and a Progressive is what I would call a distinction without a
difference, or a difference without a distinction: after all it is the difference between Tweedledum and Tweedledee, A Progressive is only a Liberal in a hurry. He wants to go ahead with a hop, step and a jump, as we see by the policy of that group in regard to the Hudson Bay railway, marketing, transportation, and so on. I think the group system of government in this country has failed. It is now a relic of the past, and I hope that in a very few years, or-better, in a very few weeks or months-we shall be able to restore to the country government by party, responsible government by the people, for the people and of the people. The London Times, commenting on the late election in Canada, says:
"Things have changed since the 29th October. The first few days of the session have sufficed to prove to Mackenzie King that the Progressives are in reality an advance wing of the Liberal party, or so he told the electors of Prince Albert ; while a sufficient number of Progressives who have scrambled back to safety have found it convenient to postpone that infusion of moral courage and idealism so long as the necessity to face the electors again is postponed at the same time."
That is correct. Let me point out to the Progressives that just as Izaak Walton was the author of The Compleat Angler, so Mackenzie King is the author of The Progressive Angler; and he is something of a fisherman himself. There are many good sportsmen among the different groups in the House, but as an angler for Progressives, Mackenzie King has few equals. He uses different bait to catch different fish. He used the waters of the Newmarket canal for some of his fishing, but when that canal ran dry he transferred his angling to the Hudson bay. The bait he uses in the angling works admirably; in one catch he has landed the whole species of the Progressive group. There is no use in anybody else attempting to equal him as an angler for that type of fish. The hon. member for South Wellington (Mr. Guthrie) tried to fish in those waters and had about landed five, but they soon got off his hook and line, never to return. I told him he could never catch any fi^h in those Progressive waters. A fisherman from the Drury government, Manning Doherty, tried his hand at the so-called fishing in the Progressive waters, but he did not catch a fish during the whole four weeks he was here. A very fine young gentleman, the Solicitor General (Mr. Cannon), whom everybody likes and respects, said that I was the Tory of Tories on this side. I admit I am a Tory of the old school. I would not call myself a Progressive; I would not be so vainglorious as to do that. For that matter I do not see why the members at the other end of the chamber remain in that corner of the House, because their proper place is on
The Address-Mr. Church


Mr. CAMPBELL:: Will the hon. member
not admit that a large portion of the taxes 14011-85
paid by Quebec and Ontario are passed on to the prairie provinces by being added to the prices of the manufactured goods they buy?


Thomas Langton Church: Not so. It would take
me an hour to explain that. We are paying a large proportion of the taxes of the people of the west. Ontario pays $52.21 per capita while Saskatchewan pays $3.76, Alberta, $8.67^, and Manitoba, $27.15. These figures were not prepared by me; they were prepared in answer to a return by the Bureau of Statistics after three months' work and they are bringing these figures up-to-date for the last fiscal year. The figures I have cited are for 1924.	*
We have heard a great deal about the exodus of our population, the export of raw material and power and how that great loss to the country is connected with unemployment. There is one feature of the export problem which has, so far as I have been able to find out, never been touched on in this House. I refer to the export of the brains of the country, and that is far more important than material things. One of the main things that helped Germany to become the great industrial power she was, was scientific research. The German student is a department of the state to-day, he is conscripted often in the summer time to work in the laboratories in order to help in developing the resources of the country. He thus earns a living while helping to develop the country. As a student of technical education he helps scientific research. Let us take for example a young student like Dr. Banting and think of all he did for humanity and civilization just by studying and working in a laboratory. He started in a very small way and he often met discouragement, as every poor student does. If we should take a leaf out of the book of Germany for a national policy in regard to our students and, instead of letting them in the summer time work at such menial jobs as cooks and waiters and in other poorly paid positions of that kind, we should secure some of them for four or five months to help in the development of our resources, and the carrying on of national research. We would thus be doing something to develop Canada for the benefit of future generations.
The hon. member for North Renfrew (Mr. Cotnam) the other day said that 3,600 students from the University of Toronto have in recent years gone to the United States. His figures are not doubted because the matter has been referred to during the past few months in a series of articles in the Toronto University Monthly by many graduates and others, including one by Professor Thomas Loudon, on university and other matters. It is pointed

The Address-Mr. Church

out that ia the departments of chemistry, electrical engineering and mechanical engineering of the School of Science, many young graduates and scientific men are going to the United States. It is all very well to lose raw material to the United States, but the greatest loss to Canada is the export of the brains of our youth. In the University of Johns Hopkins to-day there are such wonderful men as Dr. Thomas Cullen and Dr. Lwellwyns Barker, who are graduates of the University of Toronto. McGill, Queen's, Laval and other universities of the different provinces have similar graduates in the United States. The men at the head of the medical profession in many of the universities in the United States are Canadians who left here for that country and are to-day in prominent positions in their profession. What we need in this country is to do something in national scientific research and to show its necessity for safeguarding and expanding the industries of Canada, and for the development of the native industries and of the products of the sea, forest, soil and mine.
What is Canada doing? We are spending a lot of money, it is true, but very largely our efforts consist in nothing but talk and we are getting no results. The Right Hon. Stanley Baldwin, Prime Minister of Great Britain, recently declared that while science might not save industry in the Old Country it could act as a shock absorber to carry England through. The "shock absorber" he said, was such scientific development as would permit the gradual transfer of an industry from one phase of usefulness which was past to another era which was just dawning. In an address to the alumni of the University of Toronto Professor J. C. McLennan, of that body, recently made some striking remarks. I quote:
He recalled that the C.P.R. had placed orders for more coal burning locomotives and then he reminded his audience of the oil fuel car that had gone across the continent in 68 hours. "Are the locomotive works in this country putting in shock absorbers?" he asked.
A new type of gasoline which is just now being put on the market will revolutionize the type of motors being used in automobiles. The vast future in the use of nitrogen was also discussed. The whole industry had been revolutionized by new scientific discoveries. They were pressing hard on the Chilean nitrate industry, but he feared that Canadian fanners do not make as much use of artificial fertilizers as they should. They are content with 13 bushels of wheat an acre when they might be getting 40 bushels.
There was also a change ahead for the artificial ice industry forecast by the latest development of individual refrigerators using ammonia.
If business is not associated with scientific men then flat business is going to the wall.
The National Research Council can keep industries and all associations informed of what is going on if they gather about it. It can show the time to draw

in one business and expand on another. Any banker should know how the aspects of any industry are going to be affected by future scientific developments.
This shows us something of what can be done if only the government will institute proper inquiries into all these departments of our activities. Yesterday the Minister of the Interior (Mr. Stewart, Edmonton) made some reference to the diversion of water at Chicago, and here again the government is betraying an utter inability to cope with the situation. This is a most important matter for the lake towns and the ports on the Great Lakes. It has been estimated by the Hydro Electric Commission of Ontario that there has been an annual loss to Canada as a result of this diversion of water from the lakes of $35,000,000 a year and I am bound to say that I am not at all satisfied with mere protests on the part of the government. The Americans never pay any attention to such protests; they will continue to ignore them. This treaty was solemnly entered into between two nations, Great Britain and the United States, and Canada is not even a party to it. The International Deep Waterways Commission acts a3 intermediary between the two countries in the observance of the treaty, and in this connection I would point out, in reference to the question which was put by the hon. member for South Toronto (Mr. Geary) yesterday, that the Secretary for War in the United States has no power in the matter. He is a ministerial official, his positidn being analogous to that of the Minister of Public Works in this country. The harbours and the Great Lakes are under his control and all expenditures for public works are made under his direction. He is not mentioned in the treaty nor is Chicago a party to it. The amount of water to be taken from the lakes for given purposes is clearly set out in the treaty, so much for Canada and so much for the United States, and not only are they taking the allotted 10,000 feet in Chicago but they are now drawing off as much as 16,000 feet. And in addition to that they are securing from the Hydro Electric Commission of Ontario 10,000 or 12,000 feet on a contract which has still four or five years to run.
Now what I object to particularly in this matter is the fact that private citizens of this country are going to Washington and interviewing the President of the United States in regard to the treaty. I consider it a piece of impertinence for any private citizen of Canada or any private organization here to wait upon the United States authorities, going over the head of the British government, the Canadian government and the British

The Address-Mr. Church
Embassy at Washington and. ignoring the Canadian government without even making representations to the minister or government here. These deputations are interviewing the United States cabinet and are appearing before the Rivers and Harbours committee of congress and before the Senate, altogether to the prejudice of the whole case so far as Canada is concerned. The case for this country, not only in its legal aspect but from the standpoint of the facts in dispute, is being seriously prejudiced by these unauthorized and self-appointed ambassadors and it is high time that the government of Canada bestirred itself. Something more than weak protests is called for. I think this Dominion should appeal to the British government to bring the United States to time, and forward its bill to that country for the $35,000,000 damages per annum which it has lost during the past seven or eight years as a result of the diversion of water from the lakes and collect the same as reparations through the British government. That would represent some $300,000,000 which this country ought to receive in compensation for that loss, and I strongly urge upon this government that an effort be made without any delay to have the treaty strictly enforced through the British authorities. I repeat, the government of Canada should file its bill with the British government for damages sustained and should take steps to collect the money in the proper way. The diversion of water has been wholly Jlegal and it has resulted in serious injury to Canadian interests and reparation is due this country. The onus for the enforcement of the treaty rests on Great Britain and not on any individual in this country, and we can collect the money through the good offices of the British government, deducting the amount which the government of the Old Country is paying, $500,000 per day, to the United States as war debt.
As a humble citizen of this country I am very much concerned with the view which the people of the Old Country have of us as Canadians. They are asking where Canada stands in its relation to the British Empire. It was announced in a newspaper the other day that London feels that the Right Hon. Mr. Mackenzie King is playing a poor second to the United States isolation policy, and the statement has been made that Canada must sooner or later decide to live up to her responsibilities as a member of the British Commonwealth or declare herself independent of the royal navy. Now we have a Department of External Affairs in this country which costs the people of Canada about $100,000 14011-851
yearly, and what that department does I confess I do not know. What, for example, has it done in connection with this very subject I have been discussing, the diversion of water at Chicago? And what action did it take the other day when a British ship was fired on a number of times by a ship bearing an American flag beyond the three mile limit? And there are American gunboats on the Great Lakes to-day often entering Canadian harbours also enforcing the revenue laws of the United States in the vicinity of Detroit in contravention of the Rush-Bagot Treaty of 1817 and 1842. Where is the Department of External Affairs when all these things are occurring? It seems that we also in this country are content to sponge upon the hard earnings of the British taxpayers for the maintenance of our maritime freedom, and we forget the plight that this country would have found itself in during the late war if a German fleet had sailed up the St. Lawrence or attacked Halifax or St. John. In such an event what would have happened to Halifax, St. John, Boston and New York? The British fleet to-day, Mr. Speaker, constitutes the real league of nations, while the League of Nations is only a debating society and the results are of little or no value. So far as Canada's contribution to maritime freedom is concerned, we have two toy ships. Where are those ships? Off the bay of Fundy? No; they are locked up in a garage in Halifax. Is that a self respecting policy for the people of Canada to be proud of, a people who did so much in the late war, in the darkest hours of the empire, in giving of its best blood to the defence of our liberties? Are we prepared to depend altogether upon the British fleet without contributing to its upkeep? We have not spent a cent for the purpose. I doubt whether Mr. Mackenzie King was ever authorized by his cabinet to take the stand which he is reported to have taken in regard to the Locarno treaty, and I think the papers should be brought down and the whole matter discussed. This country should follow the lead of Premier Bruce of Australia, and also of New Zealand, and shoulder its part of the burden of defending the empire, with a proper contribution to the British fleet. We talk about our nationalism, but we are not a nation; we are part and parcel of the British Empire. Why, all the toy navy we have consists, as I have said, of two small boats which are locked up in a garage at Halifax.
The British people are practical; the Canadian people are not. The British House of Commons met at noon, and the Address was adopted the following day at six o'clock. If
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this government had been prepared the first day of the session to bring down its programme and introduce its bills the Conservative party would have been ready to discuss those measures. The leader of the government should have followed the excellent example set by Premier Ferguson in the Ontario legislature. In the opening days of the session he brought down ten or twelve of his most important measures and they were given a first reading without delay. If this government had adopted a similarly businesslike course, in my opinion this debate would not have lasted very long.
In the session of 1922 I introduced a resolution for the adoption of a national coal policy, so that every pound of coal used by Canada would be mined and coked under the British flag. At the time I was laughed at by certain hon. members and by some of our newspapers for what they termed the ridiculous policy of attempting to displace Pennsylvania coal in the central provinces. But I have lived to see my policy endorsed by the country. Our people now realize that the American mine owners could freeze us out in one winter. I was surprised to hear my hon. friend from Moose Jaw (Mr. Ross) say last night that he does not burn Alberta coal but likes Pennsylvania. Well, Toronto wants to bum Alberta coal. The House may be interested to learn that yesterday, as early as from eight o'clock on in the morning, over five hundred people lined up in the city hall, Toronto, to place orders for Alberta coal. All the available supply was soon exhausted.


Malcolm McLean: Will the hon. member tell the House why it is the people of Toronto cannot get more Alberta coal if our railways are still running?


Thomas Langton Church: I cannot. The hon. gentleman from Melfort will have plenty of opportunity after I sit down to develop his ideas on the subject. So far as I am concerned, this national fuel policy is not going to be laughed out of court by Sir Henry Thornton or anybody else. Sir Henry Thornton's banquet jests on the feasibility of our establishing a national fuel policy may be received as gems of wisdom by his admirers, but they are not so regarded by our serious-thinking, half-employed, soft-coal-burning citizens. It seems to me he might have given the matter more thought. He may think that some of us are seeing visions and dreaming dreams when we say that eventually the eighty million dollars that is paid annually by Canada to purchase coal in Pennsylvania will be kept in Canada and divided forty million

dollars to Nova Scotia and forty million to Alberta; we do not share his skepticism.
In my opinion coal should be carried on the same preferential rates that are granted grain and flour, and I confidently believe the time is coming when this will be the case. Coal is one of our most important native industries. Unfortunately to-day, by reason of the industrial equilibrium having been disturbed by the war, our coal industry is not in the flourishing condition it should be. Four sessions ago I urged that subsidies and bonuses should be given to the Alberta and Nova Scotia mine owners, but the Prime Minister moved to strike those words out of my motion. What happened three months afterwards? The Minister of Finance brought down a proposal to grant a subvention of two hundred thousand dollars subsidy and bonuses to assist the Alberta and Maritime coal industry, thereby accepting the principle of bonuses and subsidies. In this connection it is interesting to recall what Right Hon. Stanley Baldwin, the British Prime Minister, has done for the coal industry of the Mother country. Six months ago he was faced with the spectre of a social revolution. To save England from this horror he put through the British House of Commons a bill granting the coal industry subsidies which, according to a recent statement by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, have already involved an expenditure per annum of $210,000,000. But the people of Great Britain consider this is not too much to save a native industry. Would it not be far better for us to adopt the British policy and so put this important Canadian industry on its feet, and at the same time make ourselves independent of the United States for our fuel supply? It would be well to do this even if the Canadian National Railways should lose a few dollars here and a few dollars there. Later a profit would ensue. [DOT]
In my view it is just as necessary to use the tariff weapon to protect our industries from unfair, unjust and inequitable foreign competition as it is to call out the militia when the country is threatened with invasion from a foreign foe. In a word, we should have a national policy in peace as well as in war. We should protect our industries -agricultural, manufacturing and mining-and we should also protect our workmen from all evil effects of dumping. Consequently I do not want to see this national policy laughed out of court by Sir Henry Thornton. I should like to know if the Canadian National system belongs to the people of Canada, or to Sir Henry Thornton. Should it not be used to develop our sparsely populated Dominion?

The Address-Mr. Church
Or is it considered more important that it should be run solely for profit to satisfy the ambition of its president? Is present profit its sole aim? Or is not the development of our vast Dominion its sole object? Let me ask the House, was the Canadian National system taken over by the nation to bring about economic annexation to the United States? Or rather was not the initial objective to seek a means for distributing necessities and providing transportation to encourage an ever-increasing and contented people? We must realize that a country known to possess a real winter for fully one-half of the year cannot expect to grow if the statement is once noised abroad, and is based on fact, that no reliable source of fuel is assured its settlers. In short, Sir, if a country does not grow can its revenue be expected to increase?
So I say, Mr. Speaker, that the time has come to put an end to all these banquets, and to get down to business and solve this question in the manner I have indicated, by bonuses and subsidies and utilizing the national railway. In war time the railways were mobilized to defend our land; why cannot we use the railways in times of peace to help solve the problems of the west and of the Maritime provinces. Sir Henry Thornton's last banquet jests may be received as bits of wisdom by his admirers, but by the serious-thinking, halfemployed, soft-coal-burning citizens of Toronto, his jests are viewed differently. The light, shallow consideration given by him to a great national industry and necessity plainly reveals the small extent of his vision.
Would any business man make money unless he first invested his capital, unless his capital was first of all seemingly lost? Could there be a harvest unless the seed was first buried, and apparently temporarily lost? Could a man have energy for work and toil for profit unless he "loses" the time for rest and the cost of other necessities? Even if a great national railway does not show a sufficient profit for the first year or two to banquet all and sundry every few days, and laud its president as a great financial wizard, would not the added indirect industry and development of a great country bring returns in the near future, some ten, some twenty, and some a hundredfold?
The time has come for the government of Canada to go into this matter. The government have already adopted a coal policy. They accepted my national coal motion subject to an amendment, and the government were beaten on their amendment by a vote of 82 to 81. But what have they done since? Have they worked out a coal policy? No. Why [DOT]hould Ontario have to pay a cent to bring
coal from Alberta? Ontario is paying enough taxes now, 46 cents per head of population. Why should Alberta have to pay for sending its coal down here? Have not preferential rates already been accorded the west on grain and flour? That is a very important industry, I admit, but why should not another Canadian industry, the coal industry, receive the same treatment? The people in the central provinces of Canada are looking for the government to do something to save them from the extortion of the coal barons of the United States. In my constituency in Toronto, Earlscourt, which is a soldiers' constituency, there are twenty-two widows of returned soldiers in one block. They are mostly poor people; their pension does not maintain them, and many of them have to work for their living. When the people who are poor come to buy coal, some of them have to buy it in bagsful, and they have to buy this American rubbish, full of dust and stone, at the rate of $20 a ton when they buy it by the bagful. It is pure robbery and extortion. Where is this celebrated Combines Act that Mr. Murdock introduced some years ago? What has become of it? Who is Minister of Combines in this country to-day? Hon. gentlemen opposite said in the election of 1921 that the Conservative party was the party that represented the big interests in this country. The Conservative party does not represent the big interests. We represent no big interests. Some of us have suffered in the battle against the big interests, and are prepared to suffer again. It is time, Mr. Speaker, for the government to bestir themselves. Instead of the Minister of the Interior (Mr. Stewart) rising in his place every day on the orders of the day and giving an answer which is not an answer at all, let him get after these Yankee extortioners who are charging $20 a ton for a lot of American rubbish that yields $7 and $8 a ton to the American millionaires over in the United States. It is time the people of Canada went on a strike against buying Pennsylvania coal, but some of our National railway officials in this country are apparently prepared to go on buying Pennsylvania coal, enriching the coal barons of the United States, and giving traffic to the Pennsylvania Railway, and they do not care a rap for Alberta and Nova Scotia. Who is the responsible minister of the crown who will bring in a bill of indictment against these coal barons and take action against this extortion in the sale of coal. Down in New Jersey they have appointed a coal commission to secure and regulate a coal supply and to supply coal to consumers at a reasonable price. It is time Canada did something like
The Address-Mr. Church

that, but I have very little confidence in the president of the National Railways or the railway commission doing anything to solve this problem. It is time the government worked out a coal policy through a commission, and then we would get some results.
I wish to say a few words on immigration, because this is one of the great problems of Canada to-day. We are supposed to be launching on a great immigration policy, but, Mr. Speaker, we have no Minister of Immigration in this country. Our annual estimates amount to 8346,000,000, and of this amount only $2,500,000 is spent on immigration, and only a little more than we spent thirty years ago. Everybody is asking what is the matter with Canada? Canada was first in the Diamond Jubilee procession, but what has happened since? Australia is worsting Canada now and is doing window dressing in the matter of immigration, and Australia and New Zealand are getting the cream of the immigration from the British Isles to-day. Immigration is one of our big problems, and yet we are spending on it only two and a half million dollars. I contend that with one million and a quarter men out of work in the Old Country, the first thing we should do is to stop the exodus from this country to the United States, and then get back as many of the men who have left us as we can. We can help to do this by developing our raw materials, and manufacturing them in this country. There is no use in a lot of members of the Canadian Manufacturers Association meeting in the city of Winnipeg and urging that we spend $50,000,000 on immigration unless we first have a businesslike plan and put it in charge of a business man. Without a plan for immigration you might as well throw the money you are going to spend into the waste paper basket. There are in the United States to-day 100,000 men of the Canadian Expeditionary Force who fought the battles of this country. They had to leave Canada-Toronto, Hamilton, London, Brockville, Belleville and many other cities-and go to the United States because they could not get employment in this country. Whoever heard of the Grand Army of the Republic in the country to the south having to leave the United States to look for a job? The Grand Army of the Republic ruled the United States for fifty years after the Civil War, and presidents, state governors, and all the high officers in all the states were chosen from the Grand Army. No, Mr. Speaker, they did not have to leave their country to look for work, but 100,000 of the men who fought our battles have had
cMr. Church.]
to leave this country in search of employment across the line. We must repatriate these men; that must be part of our immigration policy. Secondly, let us close our doors and stop any further exodus and get back our men. Let us provide work for the people of this country by developing our raw materials. Over $7,000,000 9 p.m. worth of asbestos, for instance, is taken out of the bowels of the earth in Quebec, and manufactured in the United States into finished products worth over $70,000,000. We ship this asbestos from our country, a large part of it in the crude state and some of it in a semi-crude state, to be manufactured in the United States, building up their big cities in Indiana, New York, and other large cities in New Jersey and Michigan. As I pointed out last session, we export thirty-six minerals to the United States to be refined there and give employment to United States workmen. The first thing we must do is to inaugurate a proper national policy for the development of our raw materials, to provide work for the people in this country; next, bring back as many Canadians as we can who have left this country to get work in the United States; thirdly, let us stop the exodus from this country, and when we have done these things, Mr. Speaker, let us launch upon a great immigration scheme in the Old Country. There is no overseas dominion that should not help in giving employment to these men who are out of work in the Old Country, our own kith and kin, when work can be provided for them if we would only develop our own raw materials, and, Mr. Speaker, I would point out that it is under the free trade policy which hon. gentlemen to my left advocate that these men are out of work in the Old Country to-day, with many of them taking the dole, unemployment insurance, and all that. There is no oversea dominion that should not become the land of opportunity for the people of the Old Country, our own people. For unless the British Empire redistributes its population we are done as an empire.
We have never had a proper immigration policy in this country. It may be asked, "What is wrong?" I will tell you what is wrong. We are not getting value for our money from the present Department of Immigration. An intending emigrant gets in touch with an agent, and communications are exchanged with the department at Ottawa, but from six to nine months elapse before there is a definite reply from this country. In the meantime the farmer, if such he be,

The Address-Mr. Church
has given up his lease and got in touch with an agent representing the Australian government,, and he goes to that country. It is the Australian commonwealth which is getting the cream of the business and is receiving the tide of emigration to-day. What did a British minister say to the British House of Commons the other day? He predicted that Australia, which has a population according to the last census of 6,000,000 souls, will in the next ten or fifteen years increase its population to from ten to twelve millions of people. But Australia has closed the door to indiscriminate immigration. The Commonwealth of Australia is going to be a white man's country, and by its restrictions in that respect is taking a leaf out of the book of the United States. In the country to the south of us when it was revealed in a census that only 48 per cent of the population were of Anglo-Saxon birth they decided that they would close the door to all except selected immigrants. Australia is going to do the same, and the Australian government are going to see to it that the white race shall rule over there. Right Hon. Mr. Bruce is following the example of the United States, and enforcing the policy of selected immigration.
In this connection I wish to refer to the importance to the Maritime provinces of the right kind of immigration policy. Let me say that the natural market for many of the products of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick is the British Isles-everybody knows that. Continentalists may argue that the proper market for this country lies on this continent, but I maintain that it will be infinitely better for the people of the Maritime provinces to sell their products to Great Britain. The products of the fisheries of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick should be carried on British vessels to the British market by a fast freight service. The two provinces named, as well as the rest of the Canadian provinces, suffer from inadequate representation in the emigration offices in London. The High Commissioner for Canada is carrying out the same policy as in the past, but the Whole system at present in operation in London is wrong and has always been wrong. The position of high commissioner should not be simply one of a semi-diplomatic or social character. The high commissionership should be regarded in a very large degree from a business point of view, it should be a business position, and the high commissioner should act in friendly co-operation with the representatives of the several provinces. The
office which he fills should not be a sort of gilded ornament, set apart from that of the agents general of the nine provinces in isolated and lonely splendour. All should work together loyally and unitedly. The money now spent by the Dominion on immigration should be distributed to better advantage and payment made by results, and the onus of getting these results should be placed upon the provinces. Such results could best be secured by appealing to the people in Great Britain likely to be attracted by the special conditions existing either in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, portions of Quebec and Ontario, and parts of British Columbia. There are special districts in some of these provinces which are likely to appeal to certain British people accustomed to certain climatic conditions and possessing a certain amount of capital. The people to whom I have reference may not be wealthy, but many are fairly well off. They are looking for future homes in a climate and amid surroundings somewhat similar to those which they enjoy in the Old Land. I am told that thousands of families moderately well off, fond of living near the sea, would gladly settle in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick if the charms of these provinces were properly represented to them. The policy which I am advocating, in my opinion, can be so applied as to bring great prosperity to Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. It would be equally advantageous to other provinces in the Dominion.
I believe the principles of protection can be so worked out under a true national policy as to cause the life blood to flow with renewed vigour through the heart of the Dominion. If the Dominion be built on the great principles of protection and our motto be. "Each for all and all for each" nothing can stop our advance with great strides along the path of prosperity. The question of 'immigration is to be discussed later on in the session when I shall have something more to say. There has been a lot of bad advertising in the Old Country which has done us no good. I have in my hand a clipping from the Herald of London, dated January 23, 1926. which makes serious statements with respect to Canada, charging broken promises and making other complaints. I have other clippings of a similar tenor from other papers. I shall not read them, but will content myself by handing them to the Minister of Immigration.
I was sent here to fight for protection. I am not here to try to argue protection out as a question of percentages. I am here to contend earnestly for the faith once delivered
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to the saints in truths of the good old national policy. I believe that the truths of protection and these truths alone, point the way to salvation for all the pepple and provinces of this country. I want to say a word about a national policy for automobiles. Conditions in Canada at the present time are enough to make a Canadian disown his country.- Will this state of affairs never stop? Is it not possible to create, keep and maintain tan industry of any kind in this Dominion? I am afraid we are becoming the five, ten- and fifteen cent country of the world. I believe that the protection of a customs tariff should compel the manufacture of automobiles in this country. Canadian automobile plants should be something more than places where American-made parts are assembled in a so-called Canadian-made automobile. I have looked over the records of the Bureau of Statistics and I find that the value of the American automobile parts imported into Canada in the last year of record was $20,000,000; the wages paid to American workers who made these parts on the value of the imported products, I have figured out by a mathematical calculation as $6,000,000. This total would have provided work and wages for 4,000 Canadians at a wage rate of $30 per week. I believe that protection is not a question of percentages.
I have already said I was not here to discuss percentages but the principles of the protective system. I believe .that in the case of the motor industry principles of protection should be so applied as to make that industry thoroughly Canadian. The principles of protection, properly applied, would enable the Canadian manufacturer to have the Canadian market to himself. They would compel the Canadian manufacturer to meet the demand of the Canadian market with automobiles made in Canada from A to Z, from Genesis to Revelations. There were sold in Canada in the last year of record automobiles manufactured in the United' States to the amount-of $15,000,000. If the Canadian automobile industry was really -a Canadian industry, and not an American owned, and largely American operated industry, this country would have a supply of Canadian made motors for use at home and for export abroad as good as any in the world. Canadians now spend $71,000,000 in the purchase of motors cars. I get this report from the Bureau of Statistics. It also shows that the value of imports of auto-

mobiles into Canada from the United States in the calendar year 1925 was $13,000,000, and of auto parts $20,000,000. In this connection I would like to put ten or twelve lines of figures on Hansard. The figures are:
Year	Number Wages
1923	
318,098	$579,002,6861924	
329,563	547,215,700
The estimated number of parts and accessory factory workers in 1924 was 300,000. The annual production of motor vehicles in the United States, including production of plants, located in Canada, making motor vehicles of United States design, was as follows:
Year	Number Wholesale Value
1923	
3,691,237	$2,276,399,2701921	
3,243,285	2,011,038,288
The production of motor cars in Canada in 1924 was valued at $88,480,418, and the exports of motor cars from Canada to all countries in 1924 amounted to $26,509,393. Canada's total imports of motor cars in that year amounted1 to $9,641,309. By adding together production and imports and subtracting exports we arrive at an estimate of apparent consumption, which is the nearest figure to sales that is available. By a calculation of this kind it will be found1 that the apparent consumption of motor cars in Canada in 1924 amounted to $71,612,334. This matter has been referred to by the hon member for Halton (Mr. Anderson) whom I do not see present. He came out for lowering the duties on automobiles, and the hon. member for Toronto West Centre also refers to it in the Orange Sentinel. I had better give the words used by the hon. member for Hatton in this House in the session of 1923. At page 2841 of Hansard of May 17 of that year the hon. member said:
As I have previously stated, I am not a high protectionist, and I think there are some industries in this country which possibly are too highly protected. One of these, I think, is the automobile industry. This industry is making rapid strides in Canada and in the last year this country, a country of nine million people, exported half as many automobiles as did the United States, with a population of 110,000,000.
The hon. member for Toronto West Centre said in an editorial in the Orange Sentinel headed, "Reduce the Duty on Motors":
Whatever else may be done with the customs tariff at the next session of parliament, there should be a substantial reduction in the duty on motor cars. It is clear from the prices quoted in the United States and Canada that the Canadian manufacturers are charging "all the traffic will stand." The duty of 35 per cent is more than protection. It is in part a government subsidy to the makers of automobiles.

The Address-Mr. Church
As long as the motor car was purely a luxury that only the rich could enjoy, there was not much reason for complaint. But the motor car has become a necessity in business and professional life, and those who are thus compelled to buy one should not be forced to pay excessive profits to the manufacturers. A certain type of car that sells in the United States at $1,875, costs $3,100 m Canada. That is altogether too wide a spread, and is not warranted by any factor in the trade. The American makers have larger production, it is true, but they pay higher wages, and there is no reason why their raw materials, are any cheaper. The makers of motor cars in Canada are soaking the public unduly, and it is the duty of the government to lower the tariff, and in that way inject a little competition of American firms that will bring down the prices.
Then, the Textile Journal says:
We presume manufacturers in every line-with the possible exception of the automobiles, in which we think there is an exorbitant protection, are suffering along the same lines.
These automobile manufacturers do not know any .polities. The automobile is their politics. In 1921 a 'great many went over holus bolus to the Mackenzie King government, and a great many gentlemen want to swing over to our side now. They swing over like a pendulum on a change of government-. But I predict that the automobile industry, like the coal industry, will become a native industry, with the resources we have in this country. We will make the parts and put into the motor car every article that is used-iron wood, glass and everything else. We will make all the materials used in the manufacture of automobiles and motor trucks. We should have a national policy which would' raise up a tariff against the United States so as to require every car and motor truck to be manufactured in all its parts in Canada, and thus give employment to thousands of men.
With regard to this particular industry there was a division in this House on the question and some hon. members on this side voted to reduce the tariff, namely the bon. member for York Sunlbury (Mr. Hanson) the hon. member for Kingston City (Mr. Ross) and the hon. member for South Oxford (Mr. Sutherland), the hon. member for Royal (Mr. Jones); the then hon. member for St. John and Albert, Mr. Baxter, and others. I voted against the resolution to lower the tariff, because I did not believe that that was the solution. 1 believe the motor car industry should be a Canadian industry and we should have such a tariff as would cause every car and motor truck sold in Canada ,to be manufactured in our own country. Canada has become a great
exporting country for automobiles, as the following table of exports will show:
The United Kingdom	 $5,575,000
East Africa	 135,000
South Africa	 2,480,000
British India	 2,043,000
Ceylon		..	231,000
Straits Settlements	 478,000
Australia	 0,115,000
New Zealand	 4,680,000
Argentine Republic	 1,413,000
Belgium	 201,000
China	 135,000
Cuba	  89,000
Japan	 227,000
Mexico	 153,000
Netherlands	 240,000
Dutch East Indies	 676,000
Spain	 153,000
Sweden	 [DOT][DOT] *,	545,000
Uruguay	 174,000
Venezuela	 70,000
Total exports of automobiles were $27,246,000. Motor trucks were exported to a total value of $5,406,000. In addition we exported automobile parts valued at $4,162,000. We can very readily establish this industry in Canada. If we have such a large export trade in automobiles we can make the industry a key industry in Canada. I picked up a pamphlet of the Department of Trade and Commerce yesterday, and it says that the Canadian automobile is getting a great market in the West Indies and also in other parts of the world. By protection you can compel the United States people to have the parts made in Canada instead of in the United States, and the profits woluld thus come to Canada. The Canadian manufacturer has a preference over his competitors in Great Britain and other British countries. We can readily solve that problem if the government will do its duty. The profits paid by American companies are exorbitant. Look at the Ford Company and see the profits which they made. A committee on agricultural relations was appointed by this House in 1924 and evidence was taken before it which showed the profits made by that company. According to the evidence submitted at that time, page 981 of the proceedings of that committee, the Ford Company of Canada was formed in 1903 with a nominal capital of $125,000', of which $62,000 was paid up in cash. The balance of the stock was issued, I think, to Mir. Ford and his associates for their patent rights on the Ford car. At page 997 an official of the company says that no fresh money was subsequently taken in as capital, that the increased capital all came from earnings. The capital at that time was $7,000,000; cash dividends paid were $10,000,000; surplus and present worth, $12,500,000. That means that $29,500,000 had grown up from the original
The Address-Mr. Church

investment of $125,000. In a recent issue of the Financial Post of Toronto an item regarding the Ford Company of Canada says:
During the past week Ford of Canada sold at 498 at New York and there has been a bid of 500 with no stock offering on the Toronto exchange. This is a new high for these shares. Last January and again in March they reached 485, but have been down around 450 since then, the last sale being at 450 on Nov. 6. No reason is advanced for the activity in the shares unless it is expectation in the way of melon splitting. Shareholders have not been overburdened with dividends of late years, the company having paid but 10 per cent in 1924 and a similar amount in 1923. Earnings justified a greater payment. In 1923 they were $5,106,197 and 1924, $3,719,187, while the 10 percent dividend took $700,000 each year. Surplus to-day stands at $19,609,861. It is interesting to review the dividend position of the shares since the company was organized in 1906 with $125,000 capitalization, reorganized 1911, $1,000,000 capital and again 1916, $10,000,000 capital, $7,000,000 issued.
Some melon,-to raise the capital from 81,000,000 to $7,000,000 at one issue. Talk about keeping the farmer on the farm; how are you going to do that unless you give him good roads, radials, motor cars and so on? It should be noted that there is an excise duty of 5 per cent on motor cars in the United States, and when our customs officials collect the 35 per cent duty on imported cars they add 5 per cent excise tax to the sale price in the United States and use that as the valjue for duty purposes. TIhis in reality makes the duty approximately 37 per cent of the price in the United States. There is in Canada in addition a sales tax of 5 per cent based on the duty paid value of the car and an excise tax of 5 per cent on the duty paid value up to $1,200 and 10 per cent upon any value in excess of 81,200. Take the case of a car which costs $985 in the United States; when the duty sales tax and excise taxes which I have described are added, the cost of the car in Canada becomes $1,487.66., That same car is priced at $1,506 in the city of Toronto; the difference, I presume, would be the freight Detroit to Toronto. That, I may say, has reference to a car that is to-day being assembled in Canada. If the individual purchases the car in the United States he has to pay that 5 per cent excise tax before he gets it from the dealer, and a $985 car with that 5 per cent excise tax in the United States added would cost $1,545.27 by the time he landed it in Canada.
I would like to give the prices of automobiles in the United States as compared with the prices in Canada:

	United		Per-
	States	Canadian centage	
Price	Price	IncreaseFord touring car	t 375	$ 520	38.6Ford Tudor sedan	580	755	Ford Fordor sedan	660	895	Extra for full balloon tires.	25	50	Chevrolet touring car.. ..	525	730	Chevrolet coach	735	1,015	38Essex coach	895	1,225	37Maxwell sedan	1.095	1,535	40Chrysler sedan	2,170	3,025	40McLaugMin-Buick coach.. .	1,295	1,820	41Oldsmobile coach	1,075	1,495	39Oakland coach	1,215	1,695	39Hudson coach	1,345	1,840	37Overland touring car	495	710	40Canadian prices are from	37 per cent to 41	per centhigher than United States	prices.	
Talk about these dividends; the stock of the Ford Company from 1905 has been nothing but a gold mine. They have paid dividends as follows:
Dividend Payments
	Per cent	Amount
1905	6	7,4881908	10	12.5001909	25	31,2501910	100	125,0001911	100	125,0001912	500 (stock)	625,0001913	20	150,0001913	33 1-3 (stock)	250,0001914	10	100,0001915	110	1,100,0001916	600 (stock)	6,000.0001917	5	350,0001918	5	350,0001919	35	2,450,0001920	15	1,050,0001921	30	2,100,0001922	30	2,100,0001923	10	700,0001924	10	700,000
The total cash dividends to date have been $11,451,000 and to the total stock dividends $6,875,000, a total of $18,326,238. Capital stock is now $7,000,000. At $500 per share- that is this article says the price-the capital stock would be worth $35,000,000. The investment of $125,000 the company has paid in cash dividends $11,451,238 and their capital stock is now worth on the market $35,000,000. In other words, if a man had invested $1,000 in stock of the Ford Company on the formation of the company he would have drawn in cash dividends $90,000; his stock at the present market price would be worth $280,000, making a total of $370,000 from an investment of $1,000. I do not wish to say much about this industry because there may be another opportunity of discussing it. I predict that we will make this a native industry and apply the national policy to it, with resulting benefit to the farmer as well as to the artisan in the cities and towns.

The Address-Mr. Church
I am going to conclude with a few words about the railway situation in this country. The situation is not altogether an inviting one. If hon. members will look at the last blue book signed by Mr. Graham Bell, Deputy Minister of Railways and Canals, pages 8 and 9, they will find a statement of the system from a financial standpoint. I am a public-ownership man and I do not think anybody ever doubted where I stood in that regard.
I will read just three paragraphs of this statement in order to show the financial position of this particular company as regards its capital and to show that some adjustment must be made of these conditions if the system is to be placed on its feet:
Financial Reorganization
In his commentary on the year's operations, Sir Henry Thornton, president and chairman of the National Railway board, again refers to the allimportant question of capitalization, and reports that active consideration is being given to the policy to be followed in connection therewith "and the extent to which, if at all, advances made and capital held by the government should be written down to a figure commensurate with the earning prospects of the property." The president and chairman adds that the problem is proving both difficult and complicated, but it is hoped shortly to be able to present to the proper authorities a consistent scheme for consideration.
This question of financial reorganization of the Canadian National system is one of the most pressing problems that to-day confront the management and the government. The greater part of the Canadian National mileage was formerly privately owned. Due to over-expansion and to conditions due to the war, these railways found it impossible to carry on and were taken over by the government. Had the railways been obliged to liquidate their affairs, readjustment of capital charges would have taken place at that point. Less drastic methods resulted in the transfer of these railway properties to the government of Canada, and with them the heavy capital charges which private ownership had found it impossible to carry.
The next paragraph in the report refers to the funded debt of the National railways. One-half of this funded debt consists of guarantees and loans by the government of Canada and the other half is money lent by private people. The part advanced by the government does not pay dividends; it is a frozen asset. The other part does pay dividends. I want hon. members to listen to these two paragraphs because they constitute the whole key of the transportation problem as affecting the National Railways: The Funded Debt
The long-term funded debt of the Canadian National Railways is given in the balance sheet as $2,050,181,517.70. Of this sum $913,913,082 was supplied by the investing public, and two-thirds of this debt due the public is guaranteed by the Dominion, of which it is, therefore, a contingent liability.
Forming part of the long-term funded debt are advances totalling $560,397,957.64 by the Dominion government to railways now included in the National
system. On this immense sum interest amounting to $130,157,922.28 has accrued. This the railways have not been able to pay, and accrued interest has been added to principal, though in such cases it is not compounded. Thus the total advances, including interest, now amounting to $690,555,949.92, as indicated in the balance sheet.
Included in the $2,056,181,517.70 given as the sum of its long-term funded debt in the balance sheet is an item of $451,712,484.98, which represents the amount Canada has spent in the construction, maintenance and operation of former Canadian Government railways, such as the Intercolonial, the Prince Edward Island railway, eastern branch lines and the Transcontinental, the eastern division of the projected Grand Trunk Pacific.	It has not been the practice to
reckon interest on these advances to the original Canadian Government railways, so that the item referred to is exclusive of interest. The inclusion of these advances on appropriation account, Canadian Government Railways, among the liabilities of the Canadian National lines is entirely a bookkeeping requirement rendered necessary by the fact that a corresponding item is included among the investments in road and equipment on the asset side of the ledger. It is well, however, to point out that this item of $451,712,484.98 is not a liability of the Canadian National railways, though it is money which the Dominion has put into railways apart altogether from the properties taken over by reason of the failure of private ownership.
Interest Charges
The question of interest has been referred to. Owing to the varying practices in the financial operations of the respective systems which make up the Canadian National lines, this question of interest of itself presents difficulties when the possibility of uniform financial practice is being considered. As already stated, no interest is reckoned on appropriations to former Canadian Government railways, for the construction of which there were no public borrowings. Nor is interest accrued on the amount due the government for unpaid interest on loans and advances, which amounted to $130,157,992.28 on December 31, 1924. The above sum represents simple interest on the $560,397,957.64 advanced by the government to former privately-owmed roads. In 1924 alone the accrued interest on this account amounted to $31,271,043. Five years ago the corresponding item was $14,346 831.69.
Interest due the public cannot be deferred as is interest due the government.
You cannot defer interest due to the public in the way you can stand the government off and compound the interest. You have to pay the investing public interest on their investment.
If not earned it must be borrowed; and, if borrowed from the public, interest on such amount is compounding from year to year. Last year (1924) fixed charges due the public amounted to $38,361,704.14; for 1920 the corresponding item was $31,055,318.28. Interest charges due the government and the public combined, which amounted to $45,402,149.97 in 1920, had grown to $69,632,747.14 in 1924. Including the Central Vermont, the total interest charges last year were $70,759,016.23. The rapid growth of interest charges emphasizes the importance of the examination of the capital structure of the Canadian National railways to which Sir Henry Thornton has referred.
I read those remarks for one reason only: They show the capital invested in the National railway system is over $2,000,000,000, two-thirds of which is principal and interest
The Address-Mr. Church

compounded which has not been paid and which is owed and guaranteed by the government of Canada and the other one-third due the investing public which has to be met. I want to point out to those who operate the National railways that I do not believe that the two railways should be combined because that is exactly what the late Lord Shaugh-nessy wanted. Co-ordination is nothing but combining the National system with the Canadian Pacific and that is exactly what the Canadian Pacific wants, because I read the address in 1922 of Lord Shaughnessy to his directors.
I say that the time has come when a stop should be placed on Sir Henry Thornton and his board so that they cannot continue spending millions of dollars of the taxpayers' money without the sanction and authority of the high court of parliament. We had Sir Henry Thornton purchasing the Scribe hotel in Paris with funds advanced by the directors without the consent of parliament, and we had an example given by the hon. member for West York (Sir Henry Drayton) and the hon. member for South Toronto (Mr. Geary) in regard to constructing the Rouyn railway in Quebec outside of the authority of the general Railway Act and over the head of the railway commission and parliament. Who is Sir Henry Thornton, head of the National Railways? Is he above the parliament of Canada? What function does he perform in the government of Canada? I thought the government of Canada, under the British North America Act, consisted of the Governor General, representing the King, and two houses of parliament, known as the Senate and the House of Commons. But apparently we have now four chambers in this country: The Governor General, the Senate, the House of Commons and the House of Sir Henry Thornton. He has taken the place of the press, who are supposed to be the fourth estate. The time has come to restore responsible government in this country. We have a railway commission which is supposed to be oyer all the railways in Canada. This parliament in 1917 appointed three gentlemen to make a survey of all the Canadian railways and to advise what should be done in connection with the millions of dollars spent by the people of this country in railway construction. They consisted of Mr. Acworth, general manager of the Great Western railway in the Old Country, who died last year; Mr. A. H. Smith, president of the New York Central, and the very able chairman of the railway commission of that year, an expert on railway matters, now the hon. member for West York (Sir Henry Drayton). They

were appointed as experts to make a survey of the railway systems of this country and to try to co-ordinate them and to reduce the uebt. What happened? They made a report to this parliament and the report was adopted. What was the key recommendation they made? That they should call in all the paper charters throughout Canada and start all over again, and that no charter should be issued or granted by the Railway committee of this House until it had first been reported upon by the railway commission.
Was that course followed in the case of the Rouyn railway? There is no doubt a railway there was necessary, but that is not the point. We are not objecting to the railway; the railway was not a luxury, but a necessity. We have an able premier in Quebec who is capable of taking care of the development of the resources of that province. I have nothing to say about that point at all; what I am criticizing to-night is the power of Sir Henry Thornton to take upon himself to create a dummy company because that is all it is. Every lawyer knows what is called a dummy company and what is meant by dummy directors. What I want to find out is where the railway commission of this country was when all this was going on. Where were the plans of the railway? What is the railway committee of this House for? That committee met last year for the consideration of various branch line bills which were referred to it and it sat for weeks, so that the government had all the time they wanted in which to bring this bill before the committee. But no; the money has been spent by Sir Henry Thornton over the head of parliament. With Sir Henry Thornton necessity seems to know no law and no one knows where he will stop. Just contrast the Canadian Pacific Railway with the Canadian National. Last year the Canadian Pacific went behind $13,500,000 in receipts while on the other side of the ledger they effected economies in operation to the extent of $14,000,000 so that they were able to pay dividends to their shareholders. And what did the Canadian National Railways do? They spent about $112,000,000 in new capital while they went behind many millions of dollars. It is true that they have figured out a surplus of some $30,000,000 but if you take into account all the fixed charges as set out in the report of the Deputy Minister of Railways, which I hope all hon. members will take the trouble to read, you will find that the situation is by no means so optimistic as that. After making allowance for interest compounded on all the frozen assets you will find that there is no surplus at all.

The Address-Mr. Church
I remember that when first I became interested in politics, when I was speaking for a member running for the Ontario legislature in one of the ridings of Middlesex, the then provincial premier, Hon. G. W. Ross, claimed that Ontario had a surplus, and the main issue in the election was that surplus. I was in the parliament buildings one day after addressing the people of Middlesex and Mr. Ross said to me, "Never mind talking about the surplus; come to the building and I will show you the surplus in the safe." Well, I went in order to get this tangible proof; I wanted to see the gold in the safe. He said, "Never mind the surplus now. You are a doubting Thomas. Have a cigar and forget it." I think it is pretty much the same in regard to this surplus which is claimed in connection with the National railways. If I had my way, so far as these branch lines are concerned, I would build them on the principle of the Progressive free trade law of supply and demand. I would want to know first whether the particular road was necessary and where the receipts would come from and I would let the law of supply and demand take its course. And that is the way I would build the Hudson Bay railway. That is purely a provincial railway and it should be constructed by the provinces themselves. Ontario had to build the Temiskaming railway and the proposed road to James bay and the western provinces should also build their own roads. Why does not the government follow the advice of the commission which was appointed in 1917? We have the benefit of the advice of the British and American experts who have assured us that we should catch up with our railway arrears before going ahead building new branch lines, but Sir Henry Thornton does not seem inclined to follow this advice. If he were left alone he would build a branch line to the North Pole. We had anywhere from ten to twenty bills brought down last year for branch lines, many of them purely provincial in their nature. What is the Guysborough railway in Nova Scotia if it is not a provincial road? And who by the greatest stretch of imagination can regard the Hudson Bay railway as an undertaking for the general advantage of Canada? But Sir Henry Thornton is in favour of the Hudson Bay railway and of the Guysborough railway and of other branch lines that are purely provincial. And why not? Sir Henry talks about politicians. Well, it seems to me that if he were less of a politician and more of a railway man and an economist this country would get greater results from the National railways. I am opposed to the policy of the government in regard to the
building of the Rouyn railway. I believe that parliament should have voted the money.
Last year, $75,000,000 was voted for betterments and improvements in connection with the Canadian National and branch lines, and this in the djung hours of the session. Where does the money come from for all these undertakings? How are the people in this country to meet all the expenditures of this government in connection with such enterprises as the skyscraper on Yonge street in Toronto? The government are going to grant a subsidy of $296,000 a year to a company to build that skyscraper when, right across the street, there are three other large buildings, one of which, belonging to the Canadian Pacific Railway, according to testimony given before the court of revision in the city of Toronto, is not returning 3 or 4 per cent on the money invested in it. The Royal Bank building, it has also been shown, pays less than 3 or 4 per cent while the same is said to be true of the Dominion Bank. Yet we find Sir Henry Thornton, unknown to the parliament of Canada, undertaking this very large expenditure in connection with that skyscraper in Toronto. The original scheme of 1925 had fallen through but certain gentlemen got busy around the corridors here a few weeks ago and a new arrangement was entered into, so that the government will now pay a rental of $296,000 per annum for the use of two or three storeys. In ten years they will have paid for the building twice over. And the government are doing this notwithstanding the fact that there is 700,000 square feet of floor space in various buildings in Toronto which could be utilized to advantage. What the people of Toronto want are necessities not luxuries-a post office and custom house first. Let the government centralize their offices in Toronto and in that way effect economies, instead of renting space on the ground floor at $2,400 a foot per annum. In conversation with an official of the Pennsylvania railway last summer I was informed that both in Philadelphia and in New York the railways were eliminating a good many of their uptown ticket offices and getting the public to buy their tickets at one central office. They are closing down as many ticket offices as they possibly can in the United States and effecting many economies and the same is true of economies effected in operation by the Canadian Pacific Railway in this country. In this way they are able to pay dividends. Why cannot the Canadian National Railways do the same and stop spending money as they are in expensive capital investments?
The Address-Mr. Church

I am now going to take up a matter which I trust will be referred to in this House later on. The House of Representatives of the state of Michigan are meeting to-day at Lansing to pass a certain agreement made between Sir Henry Thornton, on behalf of the Canadian National Railways, and the legislature of the state of Ohio for the removal of certain tracks passing through the city of Detroit. As hon. members know, the Grand Trunk Railway has certain interests in Michigan and a meeting was held in the city of Detroit the other day to solve this problem. The governor of the state of Michigan, Hon. Mr. Groesbeck, summoned Sir Henry Thornton a month ago to his office in Detroit and there intimated to him quite clearly that the Canadian National Railways would have to get out of	Michigan unless	they gave
up their existing right of way there. The governor of Michigan simply bluffed Sir Henry Thornton, for the state and federal courts have held that the Grand Trunk Railway has a perpetual franchise granted by the state of Michigan. What happened? Acting independently of this parliament and of the railway commission, Sir Henry Thornton has given up a valuable right of way on Woodward avenue in Detroit, in length corresponding to Yonge street from the waterfront to St. Clair avenue, of a potential value, according to the competent authorities in Detroit and many local real estate authorities there, of anywhere from twenty to thirty million dollars. The state legislature is meeting to-day in Lansing, having been summoned by the governor in special session to validate the agreement. Has any counterpart of that agreement been placed before this parliament for ratification? No. We are not even consulted.
Now, let me give the House the terms of the agreement entered into between Alexander E. Groesbeck, Governor of Michigan, on behalf of the state, and Sir Henry Thornton, directing executive of the Canadian National Railway, on behalf of the railway, with respect to the removal of Canadian National Railway tracks on north Woodward avenue, and the surrender of a charter enjoyed by the company in perpetuity:
1. That the Canadian National Railway would deed to the state of Michigan a valuable strip of right of way some twelve to fifteen miles in length between the northern borders of Detroit and the city of Pontiac so that a certain street widening undertaking might be undertaken, and that the Canadian National Railway would accept instead a certain much less valuable right of way.
2. That the Canadian National Railway pay to the state of Michigan taxes of about-

The taxes up to the present are $25,000. The courts, both state and federal, as I have already said, have decided that the franchise is perpetual. What has Sir Henry Thornton agreed to? He has signed, sealed and delivered an agreement to pay-
-$225,000 a year instead of $25,000 a year, the amount paid for the past twenty-five or thirty years on the line in question, the larger amount to cover the cost of the new right of way to be given by the state.
The third clause of this "showdown" agreement provides:
That the Canadian National Railway forever thereafter pay to the state of Michigan a tax commensurate with the value of the right of way in point, the initial amount to be $200,000 a year, based on the assessment.
Sir Henry Thornton's concession of one of the most valuable rights of way owned by the Canadian National Railways in any part of the territory traversed by that line between Detroit and Chicago, and his surrender to Governor Groesbeck of the perpetual charter which became the property of the Canadian National Railways with the acquirement of the old Grand Trunk lines, is generally regarded in Detroit as an epoch-making event in railroad policy. It is apparent that the city of Detroit and the administration at Lansing have had many experiences with the ' Canadian National Railways similar to the experiences of Toronto and Ontario. In Detroit, as in Ontario, Sir Henry Thornton has stood in adamant determination against all proposals looking to the relief of congestion, the protection of life by the elimination or guarding of level crossings, the construction of a new station-Toronto's old union station is a palace compared with the present Detroit station. As a result of the triumph of Governor Groesbeck over Sir Henry Thornton, hon. members will not be surprised to learn that the expectation of those close to city and state administrations is that the vigorous assertion of public rights will result in remedies for all these difficulties with the Canadian National Railways. After all this, the House perhaps will deem it quite natural that the state of Michigan is going to make Sir Henry Thornton electrify the system.
The special charter surrendered by Sir Henry Thornton was not long ago interpreted by the courts as a perpetual one, and as such it limited the taxes payable to the state by the Detroit, Grand Haven and Milwaukee, the Canadian National Railways subsidiary concerned in the deal, to $25,000 a year. Now the company will be obliged to continue the payment of the $25,000 a year and in addition to pay $200,000 a year until the cost of the right of way to be handed over to the company by the state is liquidated. And then,

The Address-Mr. MacDonald (Cape Breton)
according to the agreement: "The said railroad company shall become subject to the general railroad tax laws of the state," which means that a tax of probably upwards of $200,000 will annually become due and payable. The value of the charter being surrendered would be difficult to determine. It limited the taxes of the Detroit, Grand Haven and Milwaukee to $25,000 a year. Capitalizing the difference between that amount and the amounts that will now have to be paid would give the charter in point of value so many millions of dollars that to count them would make one dizzy.
And what did Governor Groesbeck undertake to give Sir Henry Thornton in consideration of these valuable concessions? The agreement reads:
In view of the foregoing, the legal abandonment by the state of any right to take over the property of the Detroit Grand Haven and Milwaukee by condemnation or otherwise will be assured to the company.
That was all, and the deal, tremendous as it is so far as financial considerations are concerned, is but the beginning, Detroiters say, of a plan to demand genuine service from the Canadian National Railways, and to extract from the company every last penny of taxes on all lines and properties.
It is evident, Mr. Speaker, that under the new agreement all Grand Trunk rights in the state of Michigan can be expropriated at any time. The Grand Trunk formerly had a perpetual charter, but this they have now surrendered, and the state of Michigan can come along at any time and expropriate the railway, which they had no power to do before. I might mention that the value of the real estate involved is worth from 20 to 30 millions: that is the potential value of the right of way given to Michigan. One of the little things in this connection that the people of Detroit have in mind is a scheme to force the company to install a new type of electric power car, operated by .a Diesel engine, with crude oil for fuel, the object being to insist that the Grand Trunk which enters the city at strategic points render a suburban service commensurate with the size and growth of Detroit. I understand that Ottawa and many other cities are also agitating for this new type of powet car. Mr. Speaker, I place the onus on the railway commission of this country for having allowed the president of the Canadian National Railways to give up this very valuable charter right sweeping to one side the Railway Act and all the 10 p.m. decisions of the courts which protected that railway for all time to come, and subjecting itself to the laws of the state of Michigan and to these increased
taxes. It has been done entirely without the authority of parliament, just as was this skyscraper proposition and the Rouyn railway that was mentioned the other day, and if this kind of thing is allowed to go on we might just as well say that there is no such thing as responsible government in this country. No wonder the National railways are running behind. I hope the day will never come' when any member of the government or any member of this House or anyone outside will try to interfere with the administration of the National railways, which should be run from the commercial aspect. The president of the road is appointed to manage the railway and he is given a free hand, but he is not empowered by parliament to go over the head of parliament and the railway commission and spend millions and millions of dollars of the taxpayers' money on capital account without the representatives of the people being consulted.


Mr. FINLAY MacDONALD (Cape Breton South):: Mr. Speaker, as one of the new members of the House may I be .permitted to join in the general chorus of congratulation to yourself on your re-election to the high office of Speaker? Long before I was elected to parliament I knew you by reputation; I had heard of your fairness, ability and impartiality. Since I have been in the House I have had opportunities of observing these things for myself, and I have learned that your decisions are always just and, particularly so far as the younger members are concerned, tempered with mercy. I trust, Mr. Speaker, that that fund has not been exhausted, because it is within the bounds of probability that I shall make a draft or two upon it before I sit down.
I believe the advice usually given to the younger members by older and more experienced parliamentarians is that during their first session at least they should preserve a discreet silence. That, I think, is very good advice, because naturally a new member coming to this House feels himself somewhat under restraint, feels himself sitting in the seats of the mighty for the first time, and naturally he should give himself an opportunity to get more or less acclimated to the somewhat rarified atmosphere of this chamber. That admonition I would be only too glad to heed; I would be only too well satisfied to preserve a silence during my first session in parliament, but unfortunately, possibly because there have been so many new members and all have evidently felt the urge to deliver their message to the House, the advice has been more or less disregarded;
1348	COMMONS
The Address-Mr. MacDonald (Cape Breton)
the new members, comprising probably half the membership of the House, have nearly all contributed to the current political literature of the country. That may have been partly due to the uncertainty prevailing in government circles and to the uncertain future of this parliament. Possibly they have felt that if they did not deliver their message at this session there might be no other opportunity of doing so.
A particularly gratifying feature that I think distinguished all the speeches was that members coming to this House spoke as representing the whole of Canada, realizing that when they took their seats in parliament they no longer represented merelj' the restricted areas that elected them, but every part of this great and glorious country. We have been enabled to bring to the attention of this chamber the various problems that are troubling different sections of the country, and although I come from Nova Scotia I feel that I should take as deep an interest in the problems of the western country as in those of my own province. I have been particularly pleased since coming to this House to find such a sympathetic and hearty response from the representatives of the other provinces, particularly those of the west, who have been always ready to hear and to consider the problems of the Maritimes. I might refer to the admirable speech of the hon. member who has just taken his seat (Mr. Church), and particularly to the speech delivered by the hon. member for Moose Jaw (Mr. Ross) a day or so ago, in which, although representing a western constituency and feeling his chief interest bound up in western affairs, he said that he was prepared to consider sympathetically those Maritime problems that we are bringing to the attention of this House.
This problem that goes by the name of Maritime rights has been before the House on several occasions. Many hon. members on both sides have indicated their willingness to help in the solution of Maritime province problems, but they have all said they want to know exactly what those problems are. They want us to condescend to particulars, as the lawyers say; to tell this House what our troubles are down there, what the causes may be, and what parliament should do to provide a remedy. Possibly there is some ground for the criticism that we have not been definite enough in outlining exactly what it is that bothers us in the Maritimes; and in the time that I shall trespass on the patience of the House I hope to give hon. members as clear an idea as I can on these points: First, what the present condition of the Maritime

provinces is; secondly, what in my opinion the causes are, that have led to that condition; and thirdly, what remedy should be applied.
I should like to impress upon hon. gentlemen the seriousness of the situation in the Maritime provinces; I refer now particularly to the province of Nova Scotia. I am not so well conversant with the problems of the other two Maritime provinces, but I do profess to know something about those of my own province of Nova Scotia. This matter of Maritime rights is not political propaganda. It is a movement on the part of the people of that section of the country, originated for the purpose of getting clear of certain disabilities under which they labour, disabilities which must be removed if we are not to fulfil the destiny that was predicted by the opponents of confederation-that we would become mere hewers of wood and drawers of water for the other provinces.
I am not going to delve very deeply into statistics. Like my hon. friend the member for East Edmonton (Mr. Bury), I have not very much confidence in statistics, because you can prove nearly anything by figures; but I am going to use them slightly for the purpose of bringing home one or two points that I shall have to make. In the first place I want to tell the House something about the present condition of the province of Nova Scotia. The matter has been before the House on one or two other occasions, but I do not think hon. members yet have a very clear idea of the desperate condition in which that province now finds itself. The debt of Nova Scotia has been multiplied by ten during the last twenty-five years. In 1900 its liabilities amounted to $4,059,517, but on September 30, 1925 they had reached a total of $40,130,119. In 1900 the funded debt of the province was $3,776,033 and in 1925 it was $35,267,927. That progress has been accelerated during the last three years. From 1922 to 1925 we have gone in debt in Nova Scotia at the rate of $5,000,000 a year. The debt of a province is not a very serious thing if the value of its assets continues to advance proportionately. But such is not the case in Nova Scotia. We find our debt increasing, we find our assets diminishing and our sources of wealth growing less year by year. Our revenue in the province is chiefly derived from our coal. In 1921 we produced about 5,734,928 tons of coal. In 1923 the production amounted to 6,597,838 tons, and in 1925 it dropped to 3,842,166 tons. In addition to the fact that our debt has increased, our chief source of revenue has been falling off at an alarming rate. Our second great source

The Address-Mr. MacDonald (Cape Breton)
of wealth in Nova Scotia is our fisheries. In 1920 they were worth $12,742,459; in 1922 they had dropped to $10,209,258, and in 1924 to $8,777,251. These statistics, which are all that I ana going to quote, will give hon. members some idea of the present financial position of that province. In addition to that, Nova Scotia has suffered, just as all other provinces of Canada have suffered, from an exodus. I have no Statistics on this point, but I do know from actual observation that in my own city of Sydney the passports issued by the United States consul have amounted to about 500 a month. This is a heavy drain on the manhood and womanhood of our part of the country.
When we entered confederation Nova Scotia was represented in this House by twenty-one members. To-day we have but fourteen. During the past year, in the industrial centre which I have the honour to represent-situated in the richest mineral county in the whole of Nova Scotia-we had nothing but destitution and suffering, soup kitchens and bread lines. About a year ago that matter was discussed here in parliament and the hon. member for Queens-Lunenburg (Mr. Duff)-I am sorry he is not in his seat to-night, because I am going to have something to say to him-made certain statements regarding that condition of affairs. What I have said will give hon. members of this House a glimpse of conditions that prevail in Nova Scotia. Now what are the causes? A great many people attribute the present condition of affairs in that province to our union with Canada. At the time of the union Nova Scotia was in a very prosperous and happy condition, a condition which has already been described by previous speakers in this House. Its ships sailed the seven seas, and its large mercantile establishments and [DOT]warehouses played an important part in the commercial life of that province. There was, as hon. members are aware, great opposition to confederation in the province of Nova Scotia. Nova Scotia was forced into confederation because the two provinces of Quebec and Ontario were deadlocked. They could not get along combined and they could not get along separately; so that outside territory had to be brought in to solve .their legislative troubles. In order to bring about a solution we say that Nova Scotia was sacrificed, and we have been paying for that union ever since. So bitter was the opposition, generated no doubt by the method that was adopted to force that province into confederation, that for years after the consummation of the 14011-86
union, on the first of July in every year the opponents of the union hoisted their flags at half mast. That opposition has not yet died out. Twenty yeans after confederation the Right Hon. W. S. Fielding, then Premier of Nova Scotia,, swept the province on the cry of repeal. Major Hume Cronyn, an exceptionally well qualified man to judge, formerly a member of this House-he attained the reputation of being one of the ablest men who ever sat in parliament,-was a member of the Duncan commission and he was sympathetic towards the wants o<f the Maritime provinces. In his report he says:
Let U3 consider but two of these consequences.
I am going to read just now this particular reference to the major point I am discussing.
We in Ontario are accustomed, if not hardened, to the accusation made in the prairie provinces that the east treats the west unfairly; but the sense of grievances unredressed which prompts this charge is as nothing to the depth of feeling which exists in the Maritimes against the central provinces of Ontario and Quebec. That resentment is of old standing and one of its causes is the belief that the Atlantic provinces were more or less cajoled into confederation by promises and alluring prospects which have failed of fulfilment. It is indeed not going too far to say that the tie of sentiment which binds Nova Scotia to the Dominion has worn very thin.
I do not know that the hon, members are particularly impressed1 with the seriousness of the situation. It is just possible that they may ridicule the feeling that exists in Nova Scotia and pay no attention to the warnings that may be given to them. But I wish to read for the information of the House a telegram which appeared in the Ottawa Journal the other day, dated Amherst, February 18:
The possibilities of commencing a secession movement in the Maritime provinces were to-day informally discussed by a handful of local business men, headed by one Walter H. Tennant, a prominent manufacturer of this town. It was stated that a meeting to formally debate the topic would be called at an early date, and Mr. Tennant was authorized to secure a speaker and arrange the details of the meeting.
I desire to read another letter which appears in the 'last issue of Toronto Saturday Night, dated Truro, February 3, as follows:
To the Editor of Saturday Night.
I read your editorial in Saturday Night, and while I am a Maritime man I agree with nearly everything you say. To my mind it is the greatest folly to try and force western grain through Maritime ports. On every million bushels so shipped Canada has to pay at least $50,000,000 in extra haulage. Maritime people are accustomed to say,, "Let the country pay as long as we get the benefit," but that is no argument and should not be considered. As you say, water will seek its level, and so this grain trade will and should find its way to the seaboard by the shortest and cheapest route no matter whether through Canadian or American ports.

1350	COMMONS
The Address-Mr. MacDonald (Cape Breton)
But, Mr. Editor, let me say that the Maritime provinces can never attain their utmost prosperity in Canada. Just as sure as the sun will rise to-morrow morning, so certain it is that we will some day be affiliated in some way with the United States. That is our certain destiny. We have sent from these provinces the very best of our manhood to that country, and the majority of those who remain are looking with longing eyes in the same direction.
C. P. Blanchard.
I am not reading that because I have any sympathy with the views therein expressed. Many of us are Canadians and hope to remain Canadians, but we would not be doing our duty to our fellow Canadian citizens if we failed to call attention to these indications of the trend of feeling in the Maritime provinces. If an agitation or movement of that sort starts, it is difficult to say just where it will end. Although it may lack leadership just now, no movement fraught with such hope for success would lack that leadership very long.
I do not for one think that confederation is the sole cause of our present problems in Nova Scotia, but confederation, the union of Nova Scotia with the rest of Canada, let loose in that province certain economic forces that are largely responsible for those problems. The two provinces of Quebec and Ontario were very much larger and wealthier than the little province of Nova Scotia. Very shortly ' after confederation the competition from those upper provinces wiped out the industries of the lower provinces, and the wholesale offices and business concerns of the upper provinces very speedily put out of existence all the commercial houses of Nova Scotia. To-day you have in the Maritime provinces a market of a million people, practically controlled by the two provinces of Quebec and Ontario. Surely it is worth while for Quebec and Ontario to make some sacrifice in order to retain that market, and that sacrifice we are going to ask them to make.
Certain other results followed from that union, possibly the most important of all being the draining of the financial resources of Nova Scotia to the central provinces of Quebec and Ontario. Twenty-five years ago we had in Nova Scotia half a dozen banks- small ones, it is true, but each serving certain business interests in a restricted area. The bankers of those days were like country dealers; they knew all the resources of their customers, whose friends they were, and they were able to advise their customers on all matters of interest to them. But what has happened? To-day we have not one bank in Nova Scotia. All our banks have been merged, gobbled up, and their headquarters
IMr. F. MacDonald.] moved to Toronto or Montreal. The result of this-and I venture to say it is largely the cause of the agitation for Maritime rights- was disclosed when a year or two ago an attempt was made by various municipalities to make those banks pay a fair rate of taxation. It was then learned that all the savings deposits in those banks were transferred to headquarters in Montreal or Toronto and invested from there. In that way practically all the financial resources of Nova Scotia have been drained out of that province and are managed to-day from Montreal or Toronto by this small number of wealthy men who, it is alleged, control all the financial interests of Canada. I have no doubt hon. members have received this extract which I hold in my hand from an address delivered by the general manager of the Royal Bank of Canada at its annual meeting in which he paid particular attention to this idea and set forth the benefits to Canada of having big banks with branches spread throughout the country. That may be all right in theory, but in practice it has been fatal to Nova Scotia.
Following our money went our industries. The greatest industry we have to-day in eastern Canada is the British Empire Steel Corporation, and it should be a purely local concern. It was started in 1893 when all the little mines in the county of Cape Breton were merged in the Dominion Coal Company. From that a still larger merger was effected in the Nova Scotia Steel and Coal Company, and two or three years ago the British Empire Steel Corporation was formed, the headquarters of that institution being moved to the city of Montreal. The result is that we have the principle of absentee landlordism in our greatest industry in the east. We have had trouble recurring every year. Why? Because the executive of that corporation are a thousand miles away from the men who earn their money for them. We think if we had a local executive rubbing shoulders with the men and entering into their interests, a great deal of the cause of all this trouble would be wiped out. I had as one of my opponents in the last election the labour leader, Mr. James B. McLachlin, who contested that constituency on no other ground than opposition to the Besco. He did not receive a vote apart from those of employees of that corporation, yet he polled 3,600 votes.
A third cause, which is possibly as important as any, was the fact that we had in Nova Scotia a local government that had long outlived its usefulness, that had existed there for forty-three years with no other purpose and aim than to keep itself in power. It became at last nothing more or less than a

The Address-Mr. MacDonald (Cape Breton)
sort of glorified Tammany organization. It paid no attention to anything except fixing its own political fences, building its own organization from the small municipal corporation and town meetings up to the government of Halifax itself. I was never so impressed with the uselessness of that organization as when I met a number of our Progressive friends and found out at a conference just what Alberta was doing. Labouring under greater handicaps than I think we have in Nova Scotia, they sent out a trade commission with the result that they are getting year by year in the other provinces a larger market for their coal. That is due to good salesmanship and to giving to the people of Alberta proper government. No such effort as that was ever made by the local government of Nova Scotia.
We do not want any commissions in Nova Scotia; we know exactly what we want down there and there is a fairly strong determination on the part of the people of that province to get it. This Maritime rights matter is not Tory propaganda at all, and I cannot put it more concisely than it was put by the late Premier of Nova Scotia-a	Liberal
premier remember-Mr. Armstrong. About a year ago conditions then were not as desperate as they are now, but they were nevertheless, as Mr. Armstrong said, very disturbing and very alarming. He headed a delegation of business men from the whole province, Liberals and Conservatives joining hands and coming to .Ottawa to lay their case before the Right Hon. Mr. Mackenzie King, Prime Minister of Canada. Some result followed in an increase in the duty on slack coal and a reduction on bituminous coal. It was of some benefit, but it did not meet the needs of the province, and I cannot do better than read to the House the summary of the memorandum presented by Mr. Armstrong to this government. I ask the House to bear in mind the fact that this was a Liberal premier who knew the circumstances of his province and who was asking for certain reforms. The summary reads:
The deputation, to summarize their representations, can only repeat that the condition of the allied coal and steel industries in Nova Scotia, and the varied interests that are dependent thereon, is truly desperate, and they can see no hope of relief from present d'ffi-culties, nor any hope of permanent prosperity' in Nova Scotia unless remedies are applied by the government, which alone has the power to take the necessary action.
It is not possible to exaggerate the calamitous consequences to Canada should coal mining in Nova Scotia be permitted to decline until it should play no important part in the fuel supply of the Dominion.
Not only would absence of native competition against imported coal eventually raise the price of coal in Canada, but a state of abject dependence upon another country for an indispensable material, would become 14011-86i
permanent after Nova Scotia had ceased to give eastern Canada some measure of self-reliance in coal supply.
We believe the government recognizes this fundamental necessity to maintain the allied coal and steel industries, and therefore ask that the requests contained in the foregoing memorandum be granted. Briefly summarized these are as follows:
1. Revision of the customs tariff upon coal to include:
(a) Adjustment of the duty on slack bituminous coal to at least the present duty on round bituminous coal, and inclusion under the same duty of anthracite dust and screenings.
(2) Imposition of the duty upon coal used in steel making and metallurgical processes, now exempt from duty.
(c)	Amplification of the subvention upon rail carriage of Nova Scotia coal to include water carriage beyond Montreal, and of railway fuel now exempted from the subvention. Raising of the maximum amount of assistance on any given freight rate from the existing limit of fifty cents per ton to one dollar per ton. Extension of the subvention for a period of years.
(d)	Assistance in establishment of coking plants using Canadian coal for manufacture of domestic fuel.
Last year the government prepared a bill for the production of this fuel but it did not present it to the House. We hope that this year this government will have courage enough to bring it down, and we promise it very cordial support, at least from the Nova Scotia members. What is wanted, in the second place, is:
A revision of the customs tariff upon iron and steel and their products, in which consideration will be given to the difficulties now hampering the steel works in Nova Scotia, which include the following:
I need not go into that because a discussion of the point will be more appropriate when the budget debate comes up. I want however to bring home to the government just what we are asking for in Nova Scotia. Where can we look for redress, Mr. Speaker? We have three members from Nova Scotia supporting the present government, one of whom is the Minister of National Defence (Mr. Macdonald) and another the hon. member for Queens-Lunenburg (Mr. Duff), who addressed the House a few days ago and rather ridiculed the idea that has been put forward by the Maritime righters. The hon. gentleman made an excellent speech, which I listened to with great interest from beginning to end. It was what might be called a fighting speech, and a fighting speech is one that is distinguished by courage. And I must say that the hon. gentleman from Queens-Lunenburg on that occasion displayed considerable courage, courage which at times rose almost to the pitch of recklessness. I admired his speech very much, I say; but it seemed to me that the hon. gentleman must be a somewhat credulous person. He made a lot of statements which I have no doubt he heard and accepted in good faith but which were rather startling, to say the least, to anyone acquainted
1352	COMMONS
The Address-Mr. MacDonald (Cape Breton)
with the facts. The first statement of 'his which struck me was this, that only after the Tories came into power in 1911 did we have any trouble in the Cape Breton mines. I may inform the hon. gentleman that since 1867, since confederation in fact, we have never had any trouble in Cape Breton, .we have never had any strikes, lockouts, riots or anything else, while there was a Conservative government in power. Another statement the hon. member made which requires correction was one which was often repeated during the last local election, namely, that the Tories of Nova Scotia advised the miners to stay out on strike and fight and that the matter would be straightened out and the miners would be helped when the Conservative party came into power. There is absolutely no justification for any such statement as that; it had its origin in the editorial room of a discredited Grit paper in Sydney. No Conservative speaker of any standing and no Conservative newspaper ever directly or indirectly held out such an inducement as that.
The hon. gentleman said he was opposed to higher coal duties. He has, I suppose, a perfect right to his own opinion, but I do not think he fairly expresses the public opinion of Nova Scotia. He was against the Canadian National Railways buying Nova Scotia coal if they could get cheaper coal elsewhere, and in that, I suppose, he was simply following out what the government said when they gave, through the Canadian Press, on May 29, 1922, the following statement:
Preference was given to Canadian coal, but where American coal, including duty, could be delivered at certain Canadian points more cheaply than Canadian coal, the railway management took the attitude that they would continue to purchase to the best advantage.
That is not the wish of Nova Scotia. Another bit of wisdom that dropped from the lips of the hon. member for Queens-Lunenburg was that he thought the government interfered too much in private business. I have heard that remark before. I have only to say that while I have not been in this House very long, yet after listening to the charges made by the hon. member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Stevens), and hearing some of the evidence given before the Customs committee, now investigating those charges, I have come to the conclusion that the government is not interfering quite enough in some private business. However, I suppose that depends on the point of view.
We have another representative from Nova Scotia in the person of the hon. member for Antigonish-Guysborough, the Minister of National Defence (Mr. Macdonald). Of course, unfortunately for us he does not now

represent a coal county; but in 1921 he was running an election in a coal county, and we have on record the promises and pledges that he then made to the constituents of Pietou riding. He promised if elected to move a resolution for a higher duty on coal, and on iron and steel; that he would secure them lower rates on the Intercolonial from New Glasgow and Pietou to Montreal; he went further, he said he was going to take the Intercolonial away	from the Canadian
National Railways.	In moving terms he
pictured the destitution and sorrow that had visited the homes of the miners in Pietou county, and he led them to believe that his return to the House of Commons as their representative would result in a golden era -their dark and desolate homes would be flooded with sunshine. A short time ago we had that hon. gentleman declaring in this House that he was not now in favour of a higher duty on coal or on steel. The hon. gentleman, apparently recognizing and remembering the promises he made in 1921, and no doubt having in mind the sign that is posted up on most industrial institutions throughout Nova Scotia, the sign of "safety first," did not go back to the county of Pietou for re-election, but sought a comparatively safe refuge in Antigonish-Guysborough.
I am afraid we cannot look to hon. gentlemen opposite for any remedy for our ills I have before me a copy of the bill that they introduced last year to encourage the production of domestic fueT from coal mined in Canada. I hope they will reintroduce it this session and place it on the statute books. But our main hope must depend on the great consideration and keen sympathy that we have received from our Progressive friends. I trust that when they come to prepare the budget for the government-as prepare it [DOT]they will-they will crystallize into legislation in a practical form all the promises they have been making to us. I envy them the proud position they occupy in this House. But more than anything else, I envy them their apparently unquenchable optimism that, despite their knowledge of the many unredeemed promises of this government, they are really going to get what is now promised them in the Speech from the Throne.
I have in my hand certain resolutions passed by the agricultural societies of Nova Scotia. In addition to the mining and fishing population we have a very fair number of people engaged in agriculture. The present provincial government has already devoted some attention to local affairs. One of the much needed facilities we desire to have pro-

Embargo on Grain
vided is a cold storage system extending throughout the province. But probably it will be more appropriate to discuss this question when the budget proposals come before the House.
I do not think I have anything further to add, Mr. Speaker, than this: I should like the House to understand that the situation in the Maritimes is really serious. A movement is on foot down there that will have disastrous results for the Dominion unless this government wakes up to the gravity of the situation and brings in some ameliorative legislation that will go far to remove the disabilities that I have brought to the attention of the House.
On motion of Mr. MacNutt the debate was adjourned.
On motion of Mr. .Lapointe the House adjourned at 10.50 p.m.
Friday, February 26, 1926